


you never cried to them, just to your soul

by dgalerab



Series: a fix-it, but more [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst with a Happy Ending, But Also A Fix-It For Chapter Two In Many Ways, Canon Divergence After Chapter One, Everyone Is Alive, Fix-It, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Maybe the Real Killer Clown Was The Bigotry We Found Along The Way, Racism, Richie Tozier-centric, Right After I Break It A Little, They're high school seniors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-27
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-10-29 08:49:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20793938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dgalerab/pseuds/dgalerab
Summary: After the Losers defeat Pennywise, they swear to come back if It ever rears Its head again. Unfortunately, Pennywise has no intention of letting them ever leave Derry in the first place.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this fic builds on the concept of "Pennywise trying to get at the Losers with more adult fears like racism and homophobia" and as such it features some HEAVY instances of those things, including some slurs/really awful imagery. I don't *think* it's worse than in canon, but it's definitely worse than I usually write, so I'm trying to warn for it suitably. Emotionally, though, the homophobia is what's going to get really, really rough here. I'll probably write out some more specific warnings for the end notes when I get there, tbh. (As usual, though, it's heading to a happy ending. I fix what I break, unlike SOME PEOPLE *stares at It: Chapter Two really hard*)
> 
> And of course my usual rule still stands: if I've forgotten something or if you want me to warn for anything specific, lmk in the comments and I will try to remember.
> 
> Anyway the fact that they all forget each other is bullshit and I'm sad so they're all 18 and still in Derry in this and no one can stop me.

It’s not supposed to be this way.

Bill thinks it’s just his mind playing tricks, at first. It’s not like this would be the first time he’d seen glimpses of yellow and thought…

Well.

It wasn’t so much a thought as an ache. The bloody, sore hole left by a missing baby tooth, or a scab peeling away after a wound.

Maybe it’s just senior year, he thinks. They’ll all be leaving Derry soon, laying their plans out. Stan’s applying to colleges, Ben already has a plan for architecture programs. Richie’s ready to go anywhere at all, really. Maybe it’s just his mind wondering if he’ll ever be able to move on from Derry. If Derry will continue to haunt him even as they all march on into the big world.

But he starts to think maybe not. Mike picks up on his somber mood, admits that he’s been worried about his regular trips into town. People are always angry in Derry, but Mike is so used to it he knows the difference between hate and something… more.

Bill walks him to the edge of town a few times, and when he sees the yellow out of the corner of his eye, Mike moves a little closer too, and Bill just  _ knows. _

There was a reason why he’d made them all swear. It would have been naive to think that it was all over. It had disappeared down a hole - hardly proof. But It had gone quiet, and they were supposed to have decades. Another 23 years. He doesn’t even know what 23 years feels like - they haven’t been  _ alive _ that long.

But he’d seen it. Mike’s glances prove it.

He’d seen Georgie, in the spaces between moments, the red balloons floating quietly along the sides of the roads, saying everything that needed to be said with a resounding silence. A silence that had crept into the Loser’s Club, shrieking with words unsaid.

They’d seen It too. He’s more convinced every time he sees them and their increasingly drawn faces.

And so here he was, wavering over the phone, reaching to grab it and then dropping his hands and pacing a few more minutes. Again.

_ If she really cared, wouldn’t she have called? _

He picked up the phone. This wasn’t just a crush. It was a  _ blood oath. _ It wasn’t about him and her and the kiss…

He punched in the number, scrawled on a piece of paper the day she’d left. The phone rang. Sweat pooled in his palms, cold and prickly.

_ “Hello?” _ came a voice over the phone. Not Bev, but older.

It had to be her aunt.

“H-H-Hello,” he managed. “Is B-Bev… Beverly there?”

_ “Oh,”  _ said the voice.  _ “Are you a friend of hers? She doesn’t get many phone calls.” _

“Y-Yes,” Bill said. “I’m a fr-friend from Derry. C-Could I s-speak to her?” His stutter has been getting better, but thinking of Bev brings it all back full force, the words boiling in his chest.

_ “One moment, dear,”  _ the voice said.

Bill’s heart thundered in his ears. Questions swirled in his mind like angry bees. If she didn’t have new friends, why hadn’t she called before? What did she look like now? Did she ever miss them like he did her?

_ “Hello?”  _

She sounded just the same. His heart lurched.

“H-Hi. It’s… It’s B-Bill,” he said, his voice pittering out as he said it.

A long pause.  _ “Bill?”  _

He blinked. It stung, to hear the confusion in her voice, but the moment the sting faded, he found himself worried for a different reason. “Bill Denbrough,” he said. Something wasn’t right.

Silence.  _ “Right,”  _ she said after a moment so long it threatened to swallow him up.  _ “Bill. Bill from… from the play. Yes, I remember.” _

““You have to come home,” Bill said.  _ From the play. _ “It’s back.”

_ “It?” _ she asked.

Something uncoiled in his gut. “You swore,” he said. It was too hard to explain everything when he barely had any answers himself. But she had to remember that much. It was an oath. “Remember?”

_ “I… I have to go,”  _ she said, and with a click, he was left with only a dial tone.

**

“So Molly Ringwald quit on us?” Richie asked. “Figures. Women, eh?”

“Shut up, Richie,” Stan said.

“It’s weird for her not to remember Bill, though, right?” Ben said.

“She moved on,” Richie said, balancing on the edge of the curb while Eddie watched nervously, waiting for Richie to tumble onto him. The way he looked made it all the more tempting to try to do exactly that. “If you could get out of this town, wouldn’t you try to forget too?”

“But I wouldn’t,” Stan said. “How could I?”

“Aw,” Richie said. “You love us.”

“I meant the clown that tried to eat my face,” Stan said, exasperated.

Richie was too busy placing his feet just so to throw himself sideways onto Eddie to grace that with a response. Eddie shrieked, as he did, and shoved Richie away. “Learn to fucking walk you dickhead!”

_ “You _ learn to walk,” Richie said. “You’re the one that got in my way.”

“In your way towards what? The ground?” Eddie snapped.

“Wherever the world takes me,” Richie said, leaning his shoulder onto Eddie.

“Feel free to fucking faceplant  _ that  _ way,” Eddie said, shoving him away and nearly managing to send him sprawling. “Break your goddamn glasses again for all I care.”

Richie laughed, feeling warm despite the cold fall wind.

“Maybe it’s like how adults can’t see It,” Ben said.

“She sounded c-confused,” Bill said. “I th-think Ben’s right.”

“Fine, so she grew up. Maybe it’s time to accept that,” Richie said. “And honestly, good for her. I wish I could leave and forget all your stupid faces.”

“Oh,” Stan said.

“What? Like you feel any different,” Richie said, adjusting his glasses before noticing that Stan had stopped paying him any attention at all. He frowned, following Stan’s eyes.

“Oh,” he said.

Bev was leaning against a shitty car, smoking and staring into the distance. They stopped to stare, and for a moment her eyes passed over them like they were strangers.

“Hi, Beverly,” Ben blurted, finally, and she frowned at them.

Her face slipped from confusion to looking like she was seeing ghosts, then broke out into a smile. “Hey, Ben from soc’,” she said.

“Nice tin can you’re driving there,” Richie said.

She looked at him, face distant.

“Richie,” he offered.

“Richie,” she said, and laughed, throwing the cigarette away so she could run across the street and hug him. “Oh my god. You’re so  _ tall, _ what the fuck happened to you?”

“Well, Eddie’s mom has been taking good care of me,” he said, before he was toppled over by the rest of them piling onto Bev.

**

Mike sped down the streets to the woods, dropping his bike and jogging to the hideout. He could hear the others already, Richie and Eddie loudest as always, but he only had eyes for one person as he slid down the ladder to take a look.

“Bev,” he said. God, it was good to see her. Maybe it was the loneliness of being homeschooled, but the relief of all of them being back together stole the breath from his lungs.

She looked at him blankly for a moment before she said, “Mike,” like someone rediscovering a childhood toy, a smile crawling over her face. “Oh, how could I forget?” She threw her arms around him. “You’re so tall too!” She pulled away. “Oh, you were… you were just…” She fumbled, putting her hand in the air as though trying to remember how tall he’d been and failing miserably. “It’s the strangest thing, I… I feel as though you were all dreams…”

Mike exchanged a look with Bill. Something was odd about all this. She seemed, if anything, dazed. “You didn’t forget about us, did you?” he asked.

She blinked at him. “That’s the strange part,” she said. “I think… I think I did.”

“Bev,” Richie said. “How could you forget this?” He framed his face like it was a work of art. Stan rolled his eyes behind him.

“I couldn’t,” she said, laughing fondly before everything caught up with her. “But I… I guess I did? I don’t understand it…”

“It,” Ben said.

She frowned at him. “What?”

_ “It,” _ he said. “You know…” 

“Pennywise,” she whispered, the bewildered joy slipping from her face as she went pale. “Oh, God, Pennywise.”

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Bill says he saw It, but…”

She whirled around to look at Bill. “It’s back?”

Bill’s face went serious. He nodded

“We don’t know that,” Stan said. “It’s just been… Stuff we saw out of the corner of our eyes and dreams, that’s all. Nightmares. Maybe because… Because we’re finally thinking about getting out of Derry.”

“Thank God,” Richie said. “One more year in this town and I’m gonna kill myself.”

“Don’t say shit like that, asshole,” Eddie snapped, pinching him until he hissed and elbowed Eddie away.

“I don’t know,” Mike said. He’d thought so too, before he’d talked to Bill, the air thick with the knowledge that they both had felt the same thing at the same time. “I think… Well, people have been weird all around town. Angrier. And the animals have been behaving weird, too. Something’s just not right in the air.”

“I haven’t noticed anything, but then again, I didn’t see shit last time either,” Richie said, sprawling out in the hammock with his fingers laced behind his head. “I guess it’s still a virgin-only thing, huh?”

“Shut the fuck up, asshole,” Eddie said. “Bill’s right. It’s not like it was before but I just feel like… Well, like I’ll be studying or something I keep having to look up because I think my mom’s in the door to bug me about something and then I’ll look up and she’s still downstairs watching TV and...”

“It’s not back, your mom is just like that,” Richie said. “Every time I show up to your house I feel like I’m being watched too, and not just because your mom is madly in love with me.”

“I’m serious!” Eddie snapped. “It’s  _ weird. _ It’s like there’s something else living in my house.”He glared at Richie.  _ “Don’t _ say it’s you dating my mom or some shit. ”

Richie rolled his eyes. “Ben said It only shows up every 27 years, right? I mean, I don’t know if you can count, guys, but it’s been at least two years less than that.”

Stan bit back a gripe, shaking his head.

“What if we disrupted the cycle?” Ben said. “I mean, we fought back. It changed us, maybe we changed It.”

“What, so it took a power nap and then came back to fight us again?” Richie asked. “No way. You guys are nuts.”

“But wh-what if… Wh-What if it’s true?” Bill asked.

“Well then, Bill,” Richie said, sitting up and looking very severe in an all-too-Richie way, “there’s no fucking way I’m going into any crackhouses with you again.”

**

“You really think It’s back?” Richie asked.

“I don’t know,” Stan said. “I’ve been having more nightmares than before.”

“That’s just because Bill’s been all weird,” Richie said. “Right?”

“It’s weird that Bev didn’t remember us,” Stan muttered.

Richie rolled his eyes. “That doesn’t mean It’s back. It just means Derry is a weird town. We already knew that.”

“Yeah, but…”

“I mean, we were supposed to be old. Bev’s the one who said we’d be our parents’ ages!”

“Maybe that was true then,” Stan said. “But maybe it’s not anymore. Maybe we changed things. Changed It.”

Richie sighed. “I don’t buy it,” he said. “We’re supposed to be graduating. Getting out of this shitty town. Now Bill and Mike are dragging us back into this clown shit again.”

“If It’s back,” Stan said, “we don’t have much of a choice anyway.”

Richie frowned at him. “Why’s that?”

“I just get the feeling,” Stan said, “that It remembers us.” He looked around, checking for watchful eyes. “Like we’re being watched.”

“Jesus, Stanley, you’re as bad as Eddie,” Richie said. “I thought you were one of the reasonable ones. You’re losing it more than they are.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Just be careful, Rich,” he said.

Richie made a face, but it was the sort of face he made when he was at least making a token effort to listen. “Whatever. Fucking nutjobs, all of you.” He hopped on his bike, waving as Stan hauled his own bike onto the curb and up to his house.

Stan watched him speed away, rolling his eyes as he parked his bike and made his way upstairs.

He paused, glancing down the hall to his father’s study. The door was slightly ajar.

He’d taken some good long looks at Judith since that summer. Somewhere between then and now, it had gone from a sweat inducing experience to discomfort. The painting still reminded him of teeth descending down upon him, but the painting itself was just that. A painting. No teeth, no power. Just a really ugly rendition of a woman.

He’d tried his hardest not to think of what Pennywise might appear as now. He didn’t want to give It the ammunition. But it was hard not to think of things that scared him. Hornets? Poison ivy? None of it seemed as heart-stoppingly scary as Judith had a few years ago.

He sighed, carefully walking over to pull the door shut, just in case - maybe he wouldn’t be as scared as he had been four years ago, but he certainly wouldn’t appreciate Judith running around - but he stopped when he smelled smoke.

“Shit,” he whispered, suddenly torn between checking what the hell was going on and running away. He steeled himself and pushed the door in.

In retrospect, the swastika burned into his father’s desk wasn’t all that surprising, but that didn’t make it any better.

**

“Can’t believe It leaped right to hate crimes so fast,” Richie said. “I mean, it was a little bit goofy, right? Now all the sudden…”

Ben looked at Stan, who hadn’t said a thing since he’d told them what had happened.

Richie trailed off, which was a sign of something being seriously wrong. “Hey, Stan, you okay?”

“You know what’s weird?” Stan croaked, after a long time. “I think I’m honestly scared that it’s just… just  _ not _ Pennywise, you know? Like, maybe Derry’s just going through a phase. It happens, sometimes. Maybe there was something in the news I didn’t see, about… Whatever.”

Richie fell silent, which made it hard for anyone else to say anything. Any silence that not even Richie would break was probably to be left alone. “Hey,” Richie said, after a while, “if it makes you feel better, I’m  _ pretty _ sure it’s just a killer clown.”

Stan managed a small smile. “Yeah. Probably just the demon that nearly ate my face off,” he said.

“That’s it! Stay positive!”

Stan shook his head, laughing despite himself. “What about you guys? Anything new?”

“N-Not r-really,” Bill said. “M-Maybe It’s s-still waking up.”

“Sounds like It’s not playing around this time,” Bev said. She had a hand on Stan’s leg comfortingly, but she was watching Bill closely.

Ben watched Bev quietly. She looked just like he remembered her, but more so. There had been something faint about her before, but the longer she was here, the more brightly she shined as  _ Bev. _ She was so herself, it was blinding.

Bill nodded. “I think we sh-should be prepared for anyth-thing.”

She returned the nod, resting her cheek on Stan’s thigh. Stan gave her an appreciative smile, trying to shake himself out of the stunned state he’d been in all day.

“If It really is b-back, we have to do s-something,” Bill said.

“I told you, Bill, no more crackhead houses,” Richie said.

“What other option do we have?” Bev asked. “It’s already after Stan, it’s only a matter of time before it comes for us too.”

“Missed you, Molly Ringwald,” Richie said.

She flipped him off without any heat. “If It’s waking up, maybe we can get It before It gets back to Its full power. Right?”

“Get it? Get it how, hit it with a baseball bat again?” Richie said. “Because clearly that worked so well the first time.”

“Richie’s right,” Eddie said. “Clearly we didn’t do jack shit to it last time except wake it up early. And now it has a grudge against us! What are we going to do, give it more grudges? I don’t think so. I’m not breaking any more bones for this shit.”

“E-Eddie…” Bill murmured, but he trailed off before he could say much more.

“Maybe we should check the library again,” Ben offered. “There’s still some historical records I haven’t looked at. Maybe can figure out what It really is.”

“I’ll help you,” Mike said. “I don’t really want to go home alone just yet.”

“Please don’t say you’re seeing the KKK,” Richie said, though not with as much vigor as his jokes usually had.

“No,” Mike said. “It’s just been quiet around the woods. Like, really quiet. Just don’t like it.”

“I’d love to have some company,” Ben said. “For however long you can stay in town.”

Mike smiled and nodded.

“Great,” Richie said. “You two nerds have fun trying to find a killer clown book. Stan, you want me to walk you home?”

Stan gave him a surprised look, like he hadn’t expected to appreciate Richie so much any time soon. “Yeah. Thanks.”

“Eds, come on, you too,” Richie said.

Eddie sighed. “Stan’s house is way out of my way, Richie, you know that.”

“So what? I’ll walk you home after. Unless you think you can’t keep up,” Richie said.

“Fuck off, asshole, just because you got tall over the summer doesn’t mean…”

Ben watched the three of them gather their things and leave.

“W-Where are you staying, Bev?” Bill asked.

“Oh,” Bev said. “Um. My dad’s actually on a business trip, so I’ve been… Well. I’ve sort of been squatting at my own place.”

“Y-You want to stay at my place? My p-parents don’t really… They d-don’t really n-notice...”

Bev smiled. “Okay. Sure. That would be nice.”

Ben watched as they wandered off, swallowing hard.

Mike peered at him, making note of things Ben wished he didn’t feel at all. “Hey,” Mike said. “So, I think maybe we should be looking at stuff outside of the library. Like, historical sites. Maybe something you missed.”

Ben looked back at him, trying to forget Bev’s smile as she looked at Bill. “Yeah. Yeah, that sounds smart.”

Mike clapped him on the back, giving him a worryingly understanding smile.

**

“Your parents really won’t notice a girl sleeping in your room?” Bev asked.

“N-No,” Bill said, smoothing out his sleeping bag. “N-Not really. They barely notice m-me coming and g-going. M-My dad’s never home and my mom b-barely leaves her r-room when she is.”

“Jeez, Bill,” Bev said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “What was it like, staying with your a-aunt?”

“Oh,” she said. Her stomach lurched. It had been fine, but somehow that worried her. She’d forgotten all about her friends, but also her dad. It had been good, living without the memory of his hands on her, of the way he spoke soft and tender and set her teeth on edge. She was starting to wonder if maybe the way the boys at school talked to her, soft and tender, would have set her teeth on edge in the same way, if she’d remembered to be afraid. “Good, I guess.”

Bill paused and looked at her, earnest and tender in a way that didn’t set her on edge at all. “G-Good,” Bill said. “I m-missed you.”

She smiled weakly. She’d missed all of the Losers in retrospect, but she hadn’t remembered to. If only she could have called them, or thought of them fondly… “God,” she said. “It’s so weird being back.”

“W-Weird good?” Bill asked.

“I think so,” she replied. “Until someone gets eaten, at least.”

Bill looked at her with wide eyes.

“Sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t funny.”

“I-It’s fine,” he said. “I’m j-just… just glad… you’re h-here.”

She sighed, her heart softening. “Me too.”

**

“So what do you think you’re gonna see now that It’s being serious, huh?” Richie asked.

“Shut up,” Eddie said.

“I mean, I don’t think some weird-ass leper is gonna cut it anymore,” Richie continued. “What kind of high school senior is shitting his pants about something like that, huh?”

“Some disfigured lunatic?” Eddie said. “I think most people would be scared of that. Not to mention, what’s more likely to kill you than disease, huh? Not a lot of people dying of clowns, but there’s all kinds of epidemics all the time, and they wipe people out by the  _ thousands…” _

“Yeah, yeah,” Richie said. “Hey, maybe now that you’re a grown-up wuss, he’ll have his dick out, rotting off…”

“Hey,” Eddie replied. “STDs are real. And AIDS…”

“AIDS schm-AIDS,” Richie said. “You know what I’ll see? A woman who’s actually attracted to you. What kinda weirdo would that be?”

“Fuck you,” Eddie said, coasting up his driveway.

“Kiss your mother with that mouth for me,” Richie said, pedalling in circles in the street while Eddie angrily kicked his bike onto the porch and flipped Richie off, slamming the door behind him as he stormed inside.

Richie grinned, heading back towards his own house.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I'm posting the day after I posted last, yes I probably should have just made longer chapters, yes I'm deeply stupid and impatient. ANYWAY this entire chapter is just me shoving the entire mythology of these movies into a locker to do my own thing.
> 
> Warnings for slut shaming, harassment and BIG warning for internalized homophobia/homophobia (+1 really shitty usage of f-slur). Check the end notes for more details!

Bev listened to the creaking of the house around her. Bill’s mother left for work about an hour after Bill was at school, leaving Bev with the task of staying quiet in his room. Given that they hadn’t noticed her there the whole night, though, she wondered if they’d even think twice about a noise from Bill’s room.

She paged through a book she’d found on his dresser.

She’d been looking for something poetic, but everything she read seemed to make it more obvious that Bill liked sharp, clever prose, not poetry.

It bothered her, more than she really wanted it to.

The door downstairs shut, finally allowing her to tiptoe over to the bathroom with the towel Bill had left her to take a shower.

She’d left the postcard hidden in her father’s apartment, she realized with a twisted pang. She wished she’d kept it. She wished she could look at it now, the neat letters and the tight lines. It was like a message in a bottle found when she’d been drowning.

Even so, she couldn’t remember it as well as she wanted to.

_Had it been Bill’s handwriting?_

The thought ate away at her stomach more than it really had any right to.

She stepped out, getting dressed quickly – though she doubted Bill’s parents would come home any time soon, she didn’t exactly want to explain what she was doing here while naked.

She looked up at the mirror to tuck her short hair behind her ears, only to find words written in the foggy mirror.

_Undecided, Beverly?_

She tiptoed closer, careful to stay a safe distance from the sink as she wiped her hand over the letters to clear them.

_Slut._

Her stomach churned, but it wasn’t fear so much as rage. She wiped it away again. The sink stayed blissfully quiet.

_Daddy’s little slut._

The tub burbled, whispers ringing from down the drain.

“Fuck you,” she told It, throwing on a pair of pants and running out of the bathroom, slamming the door behind herself as she headed down the stairs.

She’d left her car a few streets down, so as to not rouse any suspicion, and she lit a cigarette as she started walking.

A man walking down the street glanced at her, nodding amicably at her. She smiled at him, but kept her eyes on him even as she continued walking.

He took a few more steps, until he probably thought he was out of her line of sight, and doubled around. She glanced down the street, doing the familiar math. Her car was nearby, and if she could make it there, she’d be safe.

Someone grabbed her hair from behind, and she shrieked.

“Hey there,” said whoever was grabbing her hair. “What’s a pretty thing like you doing walking alone out here?”

She drove her cigarette into the direction of what she guessed would be the face of her captor. He yelped, and she tore herself away, bolting the rest of the way to her car.

**

“No offense, Bev, but that seems kind of weak,” Richie said. “Maybe It’s out of practice, huh?”

“Racism isn’t scary enough?” Stan asked. “I don’t think I slept at all last night. I kept thinking I smelled smoke, and… I mean, Mike must…”

Richie gave him a sympathetic look. “Okay, fine, so maybe it’s not _weak,_ but a few catcalling perverts on the street just seems…”

“Real?” Bev asked. “Like…”

“Like maybe it wasn’t even Pennywise,” Stan said. “Right?”

Bev’s arms tightened around Richie where she’d clambered onto the back of his bike.

Richie looked back and forth between her and Stan, then sighed, shrugging in acknowledgement.

“But we know it is, right?” Eddie said. “I mean, first Stan, then Bev… Not to mention Bill and Mike are convinced…”

“Have you seen anything yet?” Richie asked.

“No, but…”

Bev sighed and pulled over. Bill, Mike and Ben waved at her as they pushed their bikes along.

They rolled to a stop, Richie sticking out one leg to keep them steady as Bev slipped to the ground, using the back of his shirt to stay steady.

“What’s this about?” Richie asked. “Thought you guys were going to do research. Library’s back that way.”

“Mike had a better idea,” Bill said.

Mike nodded, waving at them to follow him as he walked into the woods.

“Mike’s right. We found everything we could from the library,” Ben said as they dropped their bikes and followed Mike.

“Like what?” Eddie said. “More newspapers?”

“Recent newspapers,” Ben said. “Here’s the weird thing – there haven’t been any missing kids this time around.”

“So it is just racism,” Stan muttered.

“No, I mean… Derry is way above the national average in all kinds of violent crime and missing person’s cases for a town this size,” Ben said. “Even when Pennywise isn’t around, there’s always something happening in Derry. Now there’s just… nothing. It’s the most boring summer Derry’s ever had.”

“So?” Richie asked.

“It’s saving Its energy for us,” Bev said.

They frowned at her.

“Think about it. Last time we saw stuff, there were already several kids missing,” Bev said. “And people were all on edge. Now, we’re the only ones seeing anything.”

“So It _does_ have a grudge against us,” Eddie whispered.

“Well we hit It with a baseball bat,” Richie said. “Not exactly a revelation.”

_“You _hit It with a baseball bat!” Eddie snapped.

“You joined in!”

“G-Guys!” Bill cut in. “If this is true, we n-need to stop It, or Its going to come after us. Just us.”

“Starting with Stanley, clearly,” Richie said.

“Fuck you,” Stan replied. “Mike, where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” Mike said. “Last night I realized that all the information in the library is from the settlers.”

“Yeah, because they could actually read…” Richie muttered.

“Native Americans had a pretty rich oral history,” Ben said. “I would have loved to research it, if the library had anything, but Mike’s right, there’s not a whole lot of their history left anywhere where we could find it.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Richie said, wrinkling his nose at Ben.

“Sometimes I come take walks out here when I get tired of my grandpa,” Mike said. “There’s this cave that has some carvings and stuff. I’ve never been past the first few feet of it, and I don’t know if they’re real, but maybe we’ll find something.”

Ben nodded, looking excited.

“Come on,” Mike said, sliding down the hill and out of sight.

“Maybe if the Native Americans wanted us to find their shit, they should have put it where we can get to it without breaking our necks,” Eddie muttered.

“Come on, I’ll help you down,” Mike called.

Ben got down on all fours and slid down, followed by Bev and Bill.

Richie and Eddie exchanged looks, sighing as Stan grimaced at them and followed, shimmying down an inch at a time.

“Go on,” Richie said. “Get all muddy sliding down there.”

_“You_ go,” Eddie snapped.

Richie made a face at him. “Sure, I’d love to see you shit your pants from below.”

Eddie shoved him.

“C’mon, Eds, I’ll hold your hand,” Richie said.

Eddie groaned. “Fine. But if you drop me, I swear to God I’m going to fucking kill you.”

Richie grinned and planted his feet, letting Eddie grab his hand and use it to lower himself down. He shrieked after a moment.

“It’s just me,” Mike said, and Richie sniggered at Eddie.

“He grabbed my leg you smug fuck,” Eddie retorted, yelping again as he slid further down the hill, finally letting go of Richie’s hand.

Richie sat down and slid easily into Mike’s waiting hands, sending them both sprawling.

“Idiot,” Eddie muttered, turning to look at what they’d come to find.

A small cave entrance greeted them.

Bill carefully shone his light into the crevice. “Th-They look real,” he said.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “They’re mostly just regular stuff you’d expect, but there were a few I remember being weird. Now, I’m starting think maybe they make more sense than I thought.”

“Before you knew about Pennywise?” Bev asked, voice quiet.

Mike nodded seriously.

She returned the nod sharply, then clambered through the hole and into the cave. “Come on,” she said. “It’s a lot better smelling than the sewer.”

“Well, I’m sold,” Richie said, hopping through the hole after her. The carvings were mostly of deer and fires, but they continued down the cave. 

Bev followed them with her flashlight, and Richie stayed close to her as the others climbed inside with varying amounts of difficulty.

They looked around, shining their lights around.

“Hey,” Richie said, finding a small crevice. “Eddie, I bet you could fit in here!”

“I’m not climbing down some tiny hole, asshole,” Eddie replied. “I’ll get stuck and drown the next time it drains.”

“Someone has to make sacrifices, Eds,” Richie said. “Come on, take one for the team, get stuck in the hole!”

Eddie smacked him as Bev crouched down to shine her light inside. “Don’t think you’d find anything. But you would probably die.”

“See?” Eddie said.

She grinned.

“L-Look,” Bill called, and they all stood to follow him.

Mike pressed past them to shine a light on a carving of what looked like a large clawed figure climbing out of a hole. “Yeah. See?”

“Well, it’s ugly enough to be It,” Richie said. “But what does this help us?”

“Well, the Native Americans must have been living here before the settlers,” Mike said. “And they didn’t all climb down a well and die, so maybe they knew more about It. How to survive It.”

“Or they just got used to It,” Eddie said. “I mean, maybe this carving is, like, their way of saying, ‘Hey, look at the thing that eats some of our kids every year, try not to be one of the eaten or whatever.’”

“Clearly they didn’t kill It,” Richie said.

“Or have it personally get angry at them,” Eddie said, “and decide to stop joking around and get serious, like we think It did.”

“Yep. And even if they did know how to survive it, how are we going to learn anything from these drawings? They look like a toddler drew them,” Richie said. “It’s not like we’re going to find a book saying, ‘Hey, here’s how to survive this stupid clown.’” He looked back at the wall. “Did they even have clowns back then?”

“Guys?” Ben said softly, pointing his light down the cave.

Richie followed the beam and blinked. There, on a large rock, was a leather bound book.

They all looked at Richie. He rolled his eyes. Just because he’d mentioned a book…

“Don’t trust it,” Eddie said, eyes wide. “I don’t think it was there before Richie said anything.”

“It’s a book, Eddie, what’s it going to do?” Richie asked. “Bite our hands off?”

“Uh, _yeah?”_ Eddie replied. “It could open up and have teeth and--”

Ben crept closer, opening the book. They all hissed and yelped in terror, but nothing happened. He simply cocked his head and shone the light on it. “Uh,” he said, looking at Richie. “Richie?”

“What?” Richie said, distracted from his original intention to continue teasing Eddie about his book fears.

Ben pointed as Richie got closer.

The book was written in large, dark red letters that stretched over the pages wrong. 

_Want to play truth or dare, Richie?_

“The book knows your name,” Eddie whispered, moving close to his arm as though waiting for the right moment to grab it and hide behind Richie or pull him away from a man-eating book, whichever seemed right at the time.

“Shut up, Eddie,” Richie said, heart pounding in his chest.

He swallowed. He’d never cared for truth or dare. It always wrapped back around to gossiping about girls, and Richie had never had an answer that didn’t feel like ash in his mouth. Seeing that question in what was likely blood left a niggling feeling that chewed its way through his chest.

He gingerly reached out to flip the page.

Eddie grabbed his sleeve, nearly making Richie jump out of his skin. He glared at Eddie, who only gave him a pale glance and didn’t let go of his sleeve.

Richie flipped the page.

_Why clowns, Richie?_

Richie screwed up his face in confusion.

“What the fuck does that mean?” Eddie said, taking a puff from his inhaler.

“I don’t know,” Richie said. He was well and truly baffled. He flipped the page again.

_Why are YOU so scared?_

That was a little more menacing. The past few days were starting to feel a lot more real. They’d had racism, sexism… Richie found himself thinking of Henry Bowers, and the way he’d spat at him at the arcade, the jeering and the whispers about _certain lifestyles…_

He flipped the page again.

_Truth or dare: What’s your secret, Richie?_

Ice flooded his veins. _It knew. _

“What secret?” Stan whispered, and Richie found himself turning the page again just so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the question.

_Dirty, dirty secret._

He flipped it again.

_DIRTY DIRTY DIRTY SECRETS, _it read, over and over again, larger and larger, repeating over and over as he flipped through the pages.

He slammed the book closed, heart pounding in his chest.

They were all staring at him.

“What secret?” Bev asked softly.

“Nothing,” Richie said, panic clawing at his chest. He couldn’t think, couldn’t move. His palms were sweaty, his knees shook. If people found out, if anyone knew… “There’s no secret, It’s just… it’s messing with us.”

“Y-You can tell u-us anything,” Bill said.

Eddie’s hand curled in his sleeve, his brows furrowed and eyes fixed on Richie.

Richie slapped his hand away, panic clawing its way up his throat. He swallowed down nausea. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said. They were still looking at him and the book was just sitting there, looking so damn thick and heavy with secrets. “And there’s nothing here, just a bunch of old scribbles.”

“Richie,” Bev said. “Come on, whatever it is…”

“There’s nothing to talk about!” Richie snapped at her. This wasn’t something he could tell them. It wasn’t something he even wanted to know about himself. “I’m going home.”

“I’ll come w—“ Stan started, but Richie whirled around.

“No!” he snapped. He didn’t want them looking at him. He didn’t want them guessing or watching or _knowing…_ “Fuck off!”

“Richie, It’s still out there,” Eddie said.

“And we’re underground in a cave,” Richie said. “Real safe. You guys can ask the Indians about this bullshit, all you want, but I’m done.”

“We should stick together,” Bev said. “Richie, it’s okay, we won’t ask—“

“Sticking together is what got us into this mess! Just… Just leave me alone!”

He slammed past Mike and out the cave, heart pounding as he raced as far away from that cave as he could.

**

“What the hell was that about?” Eddie muttered. “I mean, Richie’s always weird, but that was…”

“He’s sc-scared,” Bill said.

“Of _what?”_ Stan said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him like that.”

“M-Maybe he just…”

“We have to go after him,” Bev blurted. “Before…”

“Shit, he’s exactly what It wants,” Eddie said.

“We have to find him before Pennywise does,” Bev said.

“Come on,” Mike said, rushing to the entrance to help them all climb out quickly.

Bill ran ahead, helping Eddie and Ben up the hill. Bev waited for them to all grab their bikes before leaping on behind Bill.

“Do you think he went home?” Bev asked.

“No, he goes to the ar-arcade when he’s upset,” Bill said, pedaling faster as they swerved towards downtown.

Stan coasted after him, overtaking him before he stopped so suddenly he nearly fell off the bike. Eddie cursed as he braked as well, stumbling to avoid crashing into Stan’s bike. “What the fuck, Stan?” he asked. Stan was always careful. “We’re in the middle of the road!”

Stan didn’t answer, staring at the arcade.

Eddie followed his eyes. “Oh,” he said.

_RICHIE TOZIER IS A FAG, _read the red graffiti all over the arcade.

Bev put her hands over her mouth. Eddie stared at it, unsure what to think or feel. Part of him wanted to assume it was just a lie, but back at the cave, the book had been taunting Richie. A rumor wasn’t something someone hid from their friends like that.

He looked at the others, unsure what to do. “Do we wash it off?” he asked.

“I hate to say it, but I don’t think it’ll help,” Ben mumbled, pointing.

Eddie followed his hand and winced. It was everywhere. Huge, red, blatant. All over downtown. By the time they got it all off, half the town would already have seen it.

“W-We have to find him,” Bill said firmly. “If h-he saw this…”

“Pennywise split him off the group,” Mike said. “To show him this.”

“It’s going to kill him,” Stan realized.

“Oh, Rich,” Bev whispered, hugging herself as she took it all in.

“Where else would he go?” Stan asked. “Eddie?”

Eddie gaped at him, trying to form words. He felt dizzy, bewildered, too many things going on all at once, too many thoughts and feelings crowding his brain, fighting for dominance.

A scraping sound drew their attention to a nearby wall.

Dust fell as a shape carved itself into the brick. “Oh, fuck,” Eddie whispered. Whatever was happening here, he definitely didn’t want to be a part of it.

It formed a heart with a noise akin to nails on a chalkboard, then continued.

_R + E_

It took a moment. It took Bev glancing at Eddie before it clicked.

Like a switch being flipped, he was suddenly vaulted from feeling and thinking too much to being unable to think and feeling nothing.

He should feel something, he thought. There was no way that E belong to anyone else’s name, no question about what the heart meant. The moment Bev looked at him, he knew exactly what it meant and why It had made such a show of this to make sure he would see.

And yet it was simply _there._

So very _there, _with nothing to be done about it.

After a moment, Ben managed to speak up. “I’ve seen that. It’s on the kissing bridge.”

“Right,” Eddie said. “The kissing bridge.”

The others grabbed their bikes, but Eddie found that oddly enough, he wasn’t moving. It wasn’t intentional, but it was just there. Like his initial was there, and apparently also on the kissing bridge, with so much meaning and so little solution.

“Eddie,” Stan said. “What are you doing?”

Eddie blinked at him. He wasn’t at all sure what the answer to the question was. What was he doing?

“Come on!” Stan snapped.

Eddie blinked at him a moment longer, then did, grabbing his own bike on autopilot.

He definitely was supposed to feel something, he thought, as his legs found the pedals. He just wasn’t sure what.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Detailed warnings:  
\- Richie is convinced his friends won't be his friends if they know he's gay   
\- He's also forcibly outed to them and the whole (very homophobic) town without his consent  
\- Eddie's feelings on the matter are very much unclear and Idk about y'all but if I didn't know where this was going that would make *me* very nervous so just. Heads up.  
\- This isn't a warning but rather just a PSA that yes, I forgot that the actual carving in canon didn't have a heart around it and yes, I AM ignoring that because the heart is there in our hearts
> 
> Anyway the fact that Richie's response to Pennywise threatening to out him is just a quiet "we're all gonna die anyway" haunts me, like, all the time now. Also, so does the fact that Pennywise can just impersonate living people really accurately. Those thoughts aren't related, but like. I'm going to. Uh. I'm gonna... *slowly crawls under the desk*


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELL.
> 
> I'm not sure what to warn for here other than "like last chapter, but, like, worse because Pennywise is really driving home Richie's fears" and also a really, really tasteless demon Hitler joke (@ Stan but hopefully not at the expense of Stan, if I wrote it right). Details in end notes.

Richie sniffled as he pulled his knees in, shoving his fingers up under his glasses to rub at his eyes.

His stomach flipped as he looked at the bridge, trying to blink away tears. The carving was anonymous enough, but if the whole town was watching, it was just too much of a risk. He fumbled for his pocket knife. Maybe he could turn it into a B. Or scratch it out. Or _anything._

A scuffing noise had his head snapping up, hand tight around the little knife, but it was just Eddie, holding his bike hesitantly as he stared at Richie. “Hey,” he said, looking Richie up and down, apprehensive.

“Hey,” Richie said, closing the knife quickly and trying to look a little less like he’d been crying since he’d gotten here. He stepped in front of the carving.

“Richie, I already saw,” Eddie said quietly.

“Oh,” Richie mumbled. “Uh… Everything?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, chewing at the inside of his cheek. “It’s all over town.”

Richie swallowed. _All over town. _Given how It worked, maybe adults couldn’t hear it, but it was going to get around. His parents were going to hear. Everyone was going to hear. Everyone was going to know. He swallowed, hands gripping the bridge, trying to calm himself down before he looked at Eddie again. “Where are the others?”

“They’re… hanging back,” Eddie said, setting his bike against the bridge, his eyes fixed on Richie’s chest like he was trying to look right through him at the carving. That _stupid…_

“Oh,” Richie said. That could mean any number of things, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know for sure.

“Christ, Richie, you should have told me,” Eddie said, finally. He wasn’t making eye contact, and Richie couldn’t place his tone.

Richie stared at the ground too. It was too hard to look at Eddie and not know what he was thinking. “I know. I just didn’t want us to stop being friends.”

Eddie didn’t say anything, and Richie’s stomach flipped, twisting into knots.

“We can still be friends, right?” he asked, looking up at Eddie.

Eddie hesitated, and that was like a nail straight through Richie’s heart. “My mom’s going to find out,” he said. “She’s going to _freak.” _

“But that doesn’t mean… I mean, come on, she already hated me,” Richie said.

“Yeah, well, before I didn’t need to explain to her why I want to hang out with some pervert,” Eddie said. “And that’s not even mentioning the AIDS crisis, which is ongoing, by the way.”

“I… But I…” Richie managed, breathless. “I’m not sick.”

“You are, though,” Eddie said. “I mean, you’re talking about us being friends and then you do this shit? I mean, what exactly were you thinking? Letting me be around you, touching me all the time? Were you just thinking about getting in my pants the whole time?” 

“What?” Richie breathed. “No! Of course not!”

“Sure,” Eddie said, mouth twisting into a bitter imitation of a smile. “And I’m just supposed to believe you? After you’ve been lying to me this whole time, telling all kinds of your mom jokes and shit while the whole time you were hiding what you _really_ wanted from me?”

“I didn’t want anything!” Richie blurted. “Eddie, please, I just… I felt…”

“Yeah, well, stop,” Eddie spat. “You’re sick, Richie. A sick, disgusting pervert. I mean, hell, here I was scared of lepers, while _you_ were standing right here in front of me.”

Richie tried to say something, anything, but he could barely manage a breath.

“I think maybe it’s better for both of us if we don’t talk for a while,” Eddie said.

“What about Pennywise?” Richie managed, because it was the most he could say. Everything else threatened to choke him.

“What about It? It’s your fault too,” Eddie said. “You know, maybe you should let It take you, and stop infecting the rest of us with your sickness.”

Something was wrong about all this, Richie realized. He tried to pull air into his lungs enough to choke out a pathetic, “Eddie?”

Something about him felt off. The eyes, maybe, or his voice when he growled, “Maybe you’re just better off dead.”

Something grabbed his leg and yanked. He screamed, leaves rushing past as he was dragged down towards the river. He screamed, trying to gain purchase as he scrabbled at the dirt to no avail.

He landed in the water, back thudding painfully against the rocks. He tried to get to his feet, but the world was still spinning and his lungs ached from the screaming and the landing. “Help!” he yelled, splashing around as he tried to make his feet work. “HELP!”

His glasses were cracked and crooked, and it was hard to make out the figure that reached out to push him back down again, but it was definitely way, _way_ too tall to be Eddie.

That didn’t stop It, though from stealing Eddie’s features, all twisted and cruel, as it pushed Richie into the water. “They’re not coming, Richie,” It said. “No one’s coming for you. No one _wants_ you, dirty boy.”

Water churned around his head as he was pressed against the rocks. He kicked and struggled, trying to get air, to scream.

Claws dug into his shoulder, manic giggling ringing around him as Pennywise morphed into an impossible multitude of teeth that descended around him, blotting out the sun. He twisted, throwing his arms up and shrieking.

The teeth sank into his arm and tore, and he was pushed under the water again.

**

“Richie?!” Bev cried, nearly sending Bill crashing into the bridge with the speed with which she leapt off his bike. “Richie!”

The bridge was empty.

“I d-don’t think he’s here,” Bill said. “Wh-Where…” He looked at Stanley.

“I… I don’t know,” Stan said. “Maybe he went home?”

“We don’t have time to guess,” Bev said. “Maybe we should split up.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Mike said.

“Well, what else are we going to do?” she asked. “If we all run after him blindly, he’s going to get killed before we find him.”

“Yeah, but we should stick together,” Mike argued. “We can get your car, right? And there’s got to be some place other than the arcade that he would go.” He looked at Eddie. “I mean…”

“Don’t fucking look at me, I’m trying to think!” Eddie snapped.

“Think about what?” Bev asked. “We have to find him!”

“I’m not saying we don’t, but I don’t know… I mean I didn’t even know…” His eyes landed on the carving, seeming awfully obvious even in the sea of other letters. “I don’t know, okay?!”

They exploded into incomprehensible yelling.

“Guys!” Ben yelled suddenly. “Shut up!”

They all blinked at him, but the silence made something very obvious. In the distance, they could hear screaming.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie whispered. “That’s Richie.”

Without hesitation, he slid under the railing to rush down the hill, Bev tight on his heels as she vaulted over it, rolling slightly as she landed badly. The rest of them hurried to follow.

“Fuck!” Eddie shouted, and Bill skidded to a stop behind him.

There was a lot to take in, and for a gut wrenching moment, looking at all the blood, his first thought was that they had to be too late. Richie’s arm was pinned inside the clown’s teeth, blood pouring down his shoulder and soaking through his shirt. On second glance, though, Bill could see his legs moving, trying to get away.

Pennywise winked at them, shaking Richie like a chew toy.

Bev yelled, hitting it with a large branch.

It dropped Richie, and Mike crashed into the water, scrambling to pull Richie out of Its grasp. Bill ran after him, hauling Richie over.

Pennywise roared at Bev, and she started back, hands coming up to shield her face. Eddie yelled and threw a rock at it, dancing out of the way as it snarled and clawed at him. Ben threw another rock, hitting It dead center in the nose and giving Bev a moment to grab Eddie’s arm and run after Mike and Bill, hurrying to pick up Richie’s legs so they could move faster.

“Come back and play, Losers!” Pennywise yelled after them. “No one will play with the clown anymore!”

“Shit, shit, _shit,”_ Stan said, trying to look behind them as they swerved down the river to the hideout. “Richie? Richie, are you… Fuck!”

Richie’s head rolled against Bill. “Hey Stan,” he said. “What’s up with you?”

“St-Stay with us, Richie, th-there should be bandages in the hideout,” Bill said. “E-Eddie, you’re g-g-going to h-have t-to… to patch h-h-him-m…”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Eddie said. “You want me to patch him up? He needs a hospital!”

“No t-time,” Bill said.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Bill!”

They ran to the hideout, Ben running ahead to pull up the trapdoor.

Bill propped Richie up as they stumbled into the hideout so Mike could hop down the ladder and help Bill lower Richie down. He kept his hands tight on Richie’s arms as Mike helped him down.

He wasn’t sure exactly who was screaming - he was pretty sure it was almost everyone. Richie looked a little less out of it, but that wasn’t much of a consolation. There was blood everywhere, and Richie still wasn’t entirely on his own feet when Bill leapt after him and hoisted him between Bill and Mike.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck,”_ Eddie managed, diving into the shelves to look for the medical supplies they’d started stockpiling since the last time they’d needed them. 

“Richie? Richie, come on, stay with us,” Bev was saying frantically, trying to stay facing him as Bill and Mike dragged him over to the wall to sit him down.

“Shit, that’s a lot of blood,” Stan said, like he was only now getting a good look at it. “Oh, fuck, it’s worse than when Bowers got to Ben.” He looked at Richie. “Oh, God, oh, fuck, Richie, please make some dumb-ass joke, you look like you’re fucking dying.”

Richie didn’t make a joke, too busy crying and pulling his bloody arm in close.

“Someone take off his jacket!” Eddie shouted.

“Oh God oh God,” Stan said, gingerly peeling away the jacket.

Richie cried out in pain, and Stan pulled his hands away in panic.

“I’ve got it,” Bev said, shushing Richie as best she could when she was also panicking as she peeled off his jacket.

“Ohhhhh God,” Stan hissed as they looked at the long gashes in his arm.

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Ben offered. “The bone, I mean.”

“Just the rest of it,” Stan mumbled, gagging.

“Move!” Eddie snapped, throwing an armful of bandages and disinfectant onto the floor beside Richie and grabbing his arm none too gently.

Richie snatched it away.

“Jesus _fuck, _Richie, do not fuck with me now!” Eddie yelled. “Your blood is all over the entire hideout, now is not the time to do whatever the hell you’re thinking about doing!”

“Why, ‘cause I’m getting AIDS everywhere?” Richie slurred, sniffling.

“Richie, what the fuck,” Stan said.

“You don’t have fucking AIDS, you’re a goddamn virgin and we all know it!” Eddie yelled back at him. “Now shut up and give me your fucking arm before you bleed the fuck out! Fuck!”

Richie blinked at him, bleary, but he didn’t argue any more, only hissing when Eddie poured peroxide all over his arm.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks,” Bev said, squeezing Richie’s shoulder. “And it’s just his arm. The rest is just…” She looked at his shirt, swallowing hard.

“Just blood?” Eddie said. “Yeah, great, he’s just losing all his blood! Nobody panic or anything!”

Richie sniffled again, giving her a lost look.

“Christ, your glasses,” Bev said, slipping them off his face. “They’re a mess.” She lifted her shirt to try to clean them.

Richie watched as Eddie wrapped his arm. “I should have told you,” Richie mumbled.

“Yeah, you should have,” Eddie snapped.

“Eddie, come on,” Stan said.

“What? What, I’m supposed to be okay that we found out Richie I-fucked-your-mom Tozier is _gay _from a killer clown?” Eddie shouted. “I’m supposed to just… just not… not _anything?”_

Richie winced, and Bill doubted it was from the way Eddie was pressing the bandages to his arm.

“And it’s not like any of you had _your…”_ Eddie paused at that, managing to find some sensitivity buried under the layers of panic and shock. “Nevermind.”

“Maybe he didn’t want to risk ruining your friendship,” Ben offered under his breath.

“Maybe you should keep the fact that you’re in love with Beverly out of this,” Eddie snapped, then froze.

Bev looked at Ben, wide-eyed. Bill stared at Bev, heart doing several somersaults. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Ben and Bev together, and this was definitely not the moment in which he wanted to try to figure it out, not with everyone still vibrating with fear and shock and Richie’s blood all over everything.

“Well gee, Eddie, maybe he was worried about you being a total _dick,”_ Stan said.

Eddie avoided his look. “Sorry. I’m _sorry, _okay? But _Jesus, _what am I supposed to think or do or feel or…”

Richie shoved his hand over his face and let out a sob.

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie said, glancing at Richie, then at them. “Richie’s _crying.”_

“Yeah,” Stan said. “No _shit, _Eddie. You have any other genius revelations?”

“God,” Bev whispered, wrapping her arms around him. “Richie…”

Richie whimpered and buried his head in her hair. “It was right, it’s my fault we have Pennywise.”

“That’s n-not t-true,” Bill said.

“I’m the one who’s scared of clowns,” Richie sobbed. “And… And _this._ All the time.”

“That just means it wouldn’t have been a clown,” Mike said. “It would have been something else.”

“You could have told us,” Stan murmured.

Richie shook his head, crying into Bev’s shoulder. Stan sighed and stepped over Eddie to kneel down on Richie’s other side and wrap his arms around him.

“Come on, Richie, you’re the biggest loser I know,” Bev said, resting her head on his shoulder. “You’ll never be rid of us.” Stan crouched near him while Ben, Bill and Mike reached forward to squeeze his arm and legs supportively.

“If anything, I’m kind of relieved,” Stan said. “I’m glad there’s something behind all your dumb mom jokes besides that fact that you’re an insufferable idiot.”

“A sense of humor?” Richie mumbled.

“No,” Stan said firmly.

Richie managed a small smile.

“Okay, okay, could you all back off?” Eddie said.

“Could you be a _little_ nicer about this Eddie?” Stan snapped. “Look at him.”

“Look at his arm!” Eddie snapped. “Sorry I don’t want him to literally die!”

Richie stayed quiet as Eddie elbowed Bill aside to start taping the bandages around Richie’s arm. He looked Eddie up and down. “Did you see the…?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, focusing on the bandages.

“I’m so sorry, Eds,” Richie said.

“Don’t be,” Eddie said. “Just don’t let my mom find out or I’ll be climbing out the window every time I want to see you for the rest of my life.”

“You’re planning to live with your mom for the rest of your life?” Stan asked.

“Wh… No!” Eddie snapped. “I just mean… Fuck, come on! I’m just saying! She’ll lose it!”

“Because I’m a pervert?” Richie asked, voice soft enough that Eddie looked up.

“Look, just because my mom thinks being gay makes you some kind of crazed sex criminal doesn’t mean I think that,” Eddie said. “I already thought that about you way before I knew you were gay.”

For a moment it was so silent they could have heard a pin drop, and then Richie laughed, for a few seconds, before he was crying again. “Could you not say it?”

Eddie sighed. “Whatever you want, Rich. Just let me concentrate on your arm.”

Richie wavered, opening his mouth to say something, then thinking better of it. “Okay.”

**

“Ow, ow…” Richie said as Bev helped him up the stairs.

“Are you sure your parents aren’t home?” Stan whispered.

“Yeah, they’re out for the weekend,” Ben said. “You can shower if you want, Richie, I’ll find some clothes that fit you.”

“Here,” Bev said. “I can help with your shirt.”

“Thanks Bev,” Richie mumbled.

She ushered him into the bathroom, carefully folding his shirt up. She hissed in sympathy at the bruises, running her finger up his side gently.

He watched her for a moment before kissing her. With the desperation in his movements and the way she froze, she figured it was probably the most awkward kiss that had ever happened.

He pulled away. “Sorry. You’re just the prettiest girl I know.”

She raised a brow at him, scowling. “So did I make you straight yet?”

He snorted bitterly, staring at the ground. “I guess it’d get pretty crowded around here if you did, huh?”

“Oh, God, that,” she murmured. “Yeah.”

He slid down against the tub. “Sorry.”

She sighed, sitting beside him. “No, it’s… I get it.”

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked.

She grimaced.

“Because I want to talk about literally anything but…” He stopped, swiping his hands over his eyes before tears fell. “Eddie wouldn’t look at me the whole time. I don’t think he even wants to talk to me,” Richie said.

“He’s just worked up,” Bev said. “You know how he gets.”

Richie stared at the floor. He knew she was trying to comfort him, but he wondered if maybe she was being _too_ understanding. This wasn’t the same as Ben and Bill’s crush. No one had ever chased them out of a public place for so much as glancing at a girl.

“He was worried about you,” Bev said. “He threw a rock at Pennywise.”

“Just because you don’t want someone to die doesn’t mean you want to be friends,” Richie murmured.

“Richie,” she murmured softly. “None of us are going to stop being friends with you over this.”

“I think I should just shower,” he said. “I’m still covered in blood.”

She sighed. “Okay. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

He nodded, letting her leave. He pulled in the shower curtain and turned on the water, watching blood and grime swirl down the drain. He kept his arm out of the water, though it ached to do so, wincing when Ben carefully slid clothes in the door for him.

He got dressed and joined Stan and Ben as they laid out blankets and sleeping bags.

“We figure you and Bev can sleep on the bed,” Ben said, a little too hurried. “And Stan and I will sleep on the floor.”

“Aren’t you scared of something being under the bed?” Richie asked.

“Well now I am,” Stan said.

“I can check for you,” Bev said.

Richie stifled a laugh.

Stan sighed. “What?”

“No, it’s really bad,” Richie said. “Even for me.”

“Richie, I’ve been waiting all day for you to make a shitty joke,” Stan said. “Just get it over with.”

Richie bit his lip, then mumbled, “I just had this absurd thought of looking under the bed and finding Hitler there.”

Stan sighed. “Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought you’d say.”

Richie smiled weakly. “It’s a little funny. I mean, if you get past the thought of being potentially eaten by demon Hitler.”

“Oh, yeah, that _little_ detail,” Stan said, trying not to laugh.

Richie smiled at his attempts, but Bev snorted loudly. Ben tried to hide his smile. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry, Stan,” she said.

Stan lost the battle with his own laughter. “God, I can’t believe after I spent all day worried about you, you’re making me laugh about _Hilter,_ Richie, I _hate_ you.”

Richie giggled. “As long as that’s the only thing you hate me for, that’s fine.”

They stopped laughing as best they could. “Richie, I don’t hate you for anything,” Stan said. “Why would I?”

“I never said anything,” Richie mumbled. “And I’ve seen all of you in your underwear.”

“And they’ve all seen me in _my_ underwear,” Bev said. She glanced at Ben. “I mean… I didn’t mean anything by it, I’m just saying…”

“That’s different,” Richie said. “That’s… I mean of course everyone looks at you, you’re…” He gestured at her vaguely.

She rolled her eyes and whacked him on the head. “You suck, Trashmouth.”

“Blow me, Ringwald,” he replied.

She grinned. “There he is,” she said, ruffling his hair while he batted her away. She flopped on top of him. “Get some sleep, Rich. It’ll feel better in the morning.”

**

“Fuck,” Richie said. “What if I just dropped out?”

“Come on,” Stan said. “You’re a senior. You’re almost there.”

“Good enough,” Richie said. “Mostly finished high school. That’s something that’d look good on a gravestone, huh?”

“Don’t joke about that, dickhead,” Eddie said. “You nearly bled out _yesterday.”_

Richie started. “Hey. Eddie.” He looked at Stan, who shrugged at him. “How are you?”

“I really don’t want to talk about this at school,” Eddie said. “Let’s just get through today and… I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Richie said.

Eddie crossed his arms. “You’ll be fine. We’ll stay with you all day and after school we can go hunt a demon clown again. As usual, because nothing is ever _easy_ or anything.”

Richie grimaced. It was a start, but it was soured by the way Eddie had stormed off, scowling hard.

“It’s F-Friday,” Bill said. “Get through today and by Monday e-everyone w-will get bored.”

“Great, I’ll come to school then,” Richie said.

“No!” Eddie snapped. “Jesus, Rich, if you stay home, everyone’s gonna think you’re an easy target. They’ll never leave you alone.”

Richie made a face, grinding to a halt as they made it to their lockers. Richie’s had been filled with graffiti. Someone giggled off to the side.

“Any words that are just one letter off of…?” Richie asked Eddie, before quickly looking away.

“We could just splash paint over the whole thing,” Ben suggested.

Richie winced, gritting his teeth as someone shoved him hard into the locker with a hissed slur. Eddie watched them go with a dark look, checking Richie’s bandaged arm. “Try to be careful with that arm.”

“Yeah, because I _wanted_ to be body-checked,” Richie muttered.

“Let’s just get through the day,” Ben said, putting a hand on Richie’s back. “Come on, I’ll stay with you during lunch and everything.”

Richie nodded, trying not to look at anyone who gawked at him as they passed. “They’re going to get suspicious of you too if you keep touching me,” Richie said.

Ben shrugged. “I get called shit all the time. Don’t worry about it.”

Richie rubbed at his eye, trying not to cry at the gesture.

“Yeah, we’re already the Losers club,” Stan said. “Whatever, right?”

Someone else hissed a curse at Richie, and Stan flipped them off. Richie snorted, and Stan grinned at the reaction.

“Come on,” he said. “Think positive, remember?”

Richie smiled despite himself. “I think I hate you, Stanley.”

Stan grinned. “That’s fair.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings:  
\- Pennywise impersonates Eddie, that's it, that's the warning  
\- real Eddie Does Not Know how to handle this situation with all the other things going on and who can blame him but also Richie's having a tough time
> 
> Don't worry, I'm too bad at writing misunderstandings for this Richie/Eddie I-don't-know-what's-going-on-here standoff to last much longer.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter include more of Pennywise equating being gay with being sick and perverted, some light discussions of teenagers having thoughts about sex/attraction while underage, absolutely too many instances of the word "dick," another f-slur and uh................................... 
> 
> Listen is it more or less racist to have the group *accidentally* stumble upon Secret Native American Rituals together instead of having the lone abandoned black friend steal from Native Americans and mislead his friends into doing the Secret Native American Rituals? (Just FYI though Mike was perfectly justified to withhold some information from his friends, it WAS a placebo and placebos DO work and I love Mike Hanlon and I WILL fight people about this. But also some of his plotline was a wee bit... :/) 
> 
> Anyway, I don't know, I'm working with what I got here.

“How was school?” Bev asked.

Richie gave her a look that spoke volumes. She grinned at him, patting the car. “Come on. You get to ride shotgun.”

“I don’t need your pity,” he huffed, but immediately sprawled out in the front seat.

“Don’t put your feet on the dashboard,” Eddie muttered. “If we crash you’ll be snapped in half.”

Richie looked back at him, hoping to catch Eddie looking at him, but Eddie was busy climbing into the backseat. Richie quietly lifted his feet off the dashboard.

“I’m going to m-meet up with Mike,” Bill said. “We’re going to get some r-rope for exploring the c-cave, so meet us at the hardware store, okay?”

“Yeah,” Bev said. “Be safe.”

He nodded, getting his bike and taking off while Bev started the car.

To say things were awkward was truly an understatement. Stan sat between Eddie and Ben, but it was clear they had both picked the wrong sides to sit on. Like this, Eddie could look at Richie and Ben could look at Beverly. No one was saying anything.

Stan tried to make a joke, but nothing came out. Instead, he sat back and tried to pretend none of this was happening.

**

Eddie watched as Bev took another drag on her cigarette.

It had been at least five minutes since they’d arrived, but frankly, it felt like it had been an hour. He was going to lose it if someone didn’t say _something._ It was usually Richie who did the talking in moments like this, but Richie was being gut-churningly silent.

“I, uh, need to buy batteries,” Stan said finally. “Might as well take care of it before Mike and Bill get here.” He rocked back and forth on his feet for a moment before adding, “C’mon, Ben.”

“I’ll pay,” Beverly said. “I have some spare cash.” She put out the cigarette and started across the street.

Ben glanced between Eddie and Stan for a moment before nodding and joining him and Bev.

Eddie watched them go, realizing they’d left him alone with Richie on purpose. “Oh, come on,” he muttered. He glanced at Richie, who wasn’t making eye contact. If anyone had told him just a few days ago that it would be this nerve-wracking for Richie to finally shut up, he wouldn’t have believed them, but here they were, Richie folded in on himself and Eddie desperate for him to make a joke about fucking his mother.

He searched for anything good to say, but it was just not happening. “So,” he said, hoping Richie might take it from there. He’d settle for anything, really, a pass at his mother or his height or literally _anything_ he could work with.

Richie quietly picked at the bandage on his hand.

Eddie slapped his hand away. “Stop that. If you break the bandage it’ll get infected and we’ll probably have to amputate your arm or God knows what.”

“Fine,” Richie said, and dropped his hand.

Eddie sighed. Now the silence was back, and worse.

“So what’s the verdict, Dr. K?” Richie said finally, lips quirking up weakly. He finally looked at Eddie, the look on his face a pale imitation of his usual teasing look. “You ever going to tell me if we’re still friends or what?”

Maybe Eddie had been too generous in saying _anything _would make it easier to deal with Richie now. His temper snapped like a guitar string. It wasn’t like he was taking too long. He’d never even considered the _idea_ of being more than friends with anyone, much less Richie Trashmouth Tozier, and he had other things to think about too. “Fuck you, Richie,” he blurted. “There’s a demon on the loose, Mike and Bill are trying to interrogate some long-dead fucking Indians and it’s not like I had any way of expecting…” He gestured frantically at Richie. “Of course I’m going to need some time to fucking _think.”_

He didn’t expect Richie to look so goddamn devastated. It made him backpedal, trying to figure out where he’d veered off reasonable and into whatever this look on Richie’s face was. “Look, it’s not that I…”

A shadow fell over him, and his blood ran cold as he turned.

The leper loomed over him. When he looked at it, it screeched. “What’s the problem, Eddie? Miss me?”

He screamed and stumbled further into the alley to get away from it. Richie’s eyes went wide and he flattened himself against the wall as Eddie stumbled past him, putting him right in the path of the leper.

The leper turned on Richie, and Eddie’s heart skipped a beat. He wanted to reach for Richie, pull him out of harm’s way, but his back hit the end of the alleyway and his limbs refused to move from there.

Richie hit the wall across from him, eyes wide as the leper towered over him.

“What are you afraid of, Richie?” the leper growled. “We’re the same, aren’t we? Dirty, dirty boy, Richie.”

Eddie blinked, trying to will his mouth to move. _That’s bullshit, Rich,_ he wanted to say, _are you seriously scared of _that? But the words didn’t come, his body frozen.

“Dirty boy, wanting to touch your friends,” the leper hissed. Richie shook his head helplessly as the leper put its hand around his neck, long tongue flicking out at him.

_Jesus fucking Christ, just move,_ Eddie told his legs, but they didn’t. He was shaking, stomach in knots, and his legs wouldn’t _fucking_ move.

“Dirty, disgusting _fag,”_ the leper spat.

“Asshole!” Eddie finally managed to yell, something guttural and feral that ripped out of his chest without his control. He wished he knew how he’d done it so he could do it again, but instead the leper looked at him, and his breath left him.

The leper lunged, and he screamed, throwing his arms out to keep it at bay while its long tongue flicked at him.

He twisted to avoid it, and at this angle he could see Richie. Richie was on the ground, curled up slightly, and for a moment, Eddie found himself too angry to be afraid. He yelled, putting his hands on the leper’s neck and squeezing, pushing back at it.

It stumbled, wobbling on its disfigured legs as he pressed it back against the wall, wheezing as Eddie pressed it back.

_Had it always looked so small?_

He didn’t have much time to think about it, because the moment he realized that yes, it was getting smaller, the leper’s mouth opened up and acrid vomit spewed into Eddie’s face like a fire hose.

He screwed his eyes shut and tried not to swallow it, nearly choking as it sprayed and sprayed over his face.

He reached up to wipe it out of his eyes, and by the time he opened his eyes, the leper was gone.

“I’m sorry,” Richie croaked. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, _please_ don’t hate me, Eddie.”

He was crying and curled up like a baby, and Eddie felt a little like he’d stumbled into some odd upside down world in which Richie wasn’t anywhere near the fearless jokester Eddie had always thought him to be.

“Wait,” he said, slowly, “You were serious?” He stumbled closer. “That was a straightforward question, before? About us being friends? Like…?” Since Richie was on the ground in the fetal position, choking and sobbing, he already knew the answer to the question, but it was so baffling he had to ask anyway.

“Just don’t hate me,” Richie said. “I’ll never… Just don’t…”

“I thought you were _screwing_ with me,” Eddie said, staggering over to sit beside Richie. “Because I was taking too long to think about how I feel about…” He rubbed his hands over his grimy face. “I wasn’t thinking about whether or not we’ll be _friends. _We’re going to be friends no matter what, Rich, you _have_ to know that.”

Richie hauled himself up to a sitting position, sloppily wiping his eyes under his glasses. “But you said…”

“I said that because I thought you were being a _dick._ Because I don’t know yet if I want anything _more_, because it’s been like a _day, _and a lot of other shit has happened in that day,” Eddie said. “That’s all I meant, I swear.”

Richie stared at him, hiccups thinning out as he tried to keep up. “Wait, more than what?”

Eddie blinked a few times, trying to stop himself from assuming that at this point, Richie _had_ to be kidding. “More than friends?”

Richie stared at him harder, looking like he still wanted to cry but had forgotten about it, and Eddie tried very hard not to lose his temper. “With me?” Richie managed.

“Yes,” Eddie said slowly. With the way Richie was sniffling, Eddie had to assume that he probably _still_ wasn’t kidding, despite all previous experience suggesting otherwise.

“Wh… Like… we’d hold hands?” Richie whispered.

Eddie stared at him. “You’ve _got_ to be fucking with me,” he said.

“I’m… I’m not,” Richie said, and he appeared to mean it. “Are you fucking with _me?”_

“No!” Eddie snapped. “Why would I do that?”

Richie squinted at him. “You’re really _thinking_ about it? About…? With me…?”

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Yes, Richie, I am thinking about…” He made a ridiculous gesture, “… with you. God knows why.” He stopped, realizing that Richie was still making that odd face. “That last sentence was a _joke,_ by the way.”

“Just the last sentence?” Richie said, like he was worried Eddie had lost his mind.

Eddie groaned. _“Yeah,_ just the last sentence. I’m just… I don’t know yet if I want to be more than friends because this has all been crazy and you’re… _you_ and it’s just… I wasn’t expecting this, okay? But we _are_ friends. I haven’t been doubting that for a single second. And I’d never hate you.” He paused. “More than the healthy amount, anyway.”

Richie managed a small smile. “Even though I fucked your mom?”

Eddie laughed despite himself. “You’re so fucking stupid, Rich.”

Richie grinned, then sat back against the wall, letting out a sharp breath. “I’ve been so scared you’d never want to talk to me again after we got rid of Pennywise.”

“Richie,” Eddie said, shifting so he could stare at him properly. “Why?”

“You’re not the only boy I’ve… You know,” Richie mumbled into his knees. “And it wasn’t… It didn’t…”

“Who else?” Eddie demanded, feeling slightly hot at the thought.

“Henry Bowers’ cousin,” Richie said. “Just for a second at the arcade I thought we had a moment and then… I guess he didn’t like that I thought that.”

“You _flirted_ with Bowers’ _cousin?”_ Eddie blurted. “Are you _insane?”_

“I didn’t flirt!” Richie said. “I just wanted to spend some more time with him! I just… I felt… nice playing Street Fighter with him, but like… not like… normal nice, but nice like…” He looked at Eddie, wide-eyed. “But I didn’t think about anything past that! Not with him _or_ with you!”

“Yeah, I kind of guessed that from the fact that I said more than friends and you asked about holding hands,” Eddie said dryly.

“Yeah, but… I mean… I have to _try_ to not think about it,” Richie said, as though he was testing the waters, eyes darting up to check Eddie’s expressions.

“Richie, Bev threw off her dress and leapt off a cliff right in front of us when we were fourteen,” Eddie said. “Even if you did, you wouldn’t exactly be the only one in the Losers club thinking about each other naked.”

“I didn’t say naked!” Richie squeaked. “I’ve never thought …!”

Eddie gawked at him. “Who _are_ you?”

“Holy fuck! What happened to you?!” Bev yelled as she ran back to them.

“I got thrown up on,” Eddie said, sighing as he looked over at her. “Again.”

“Shit,” Stan said. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “I mean clearly Richie’s brain is broken, but… you know.”

“Are you blushing?” Bev asked Richie.

“Eddie said he’s thought about you naked!” Richie blurted, then went stiff as though he hadn’t meant to say it.

Bev swallowed down a deeply undignified giggle.

Eddie glared at him. “You _asshole.”_

Bev made a token effort not to laugh in earnest, then laughed until she cried.

**

“Alright, hands up, who’s thought of me naked?” Bev said. “I’m not mad, I just want to know.”

“Is this necessary?” Eddie sighed.

“Yes, I want to know!” Bev said.

“Do dreams count?” Stan asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

He sighed and put up his hand. “I took a cold shower when I woke up,” he said.

“You’re a real gentleman, Stanley,” she said, grinning.

Stan smacked Eddie, and Eddie glowered at him but put his hand up with a sarcastic sneer. “Briefly,” he insisted. “Like, out of curiosity.”

She nodded in faux seriousness, but the laughter still shivering inside her chest was impossible to miss.

Bill and Ben exchanged looks, recognizing that they were in the same boat, and very quietly raised their hands to be the least visible they could be.

“Come on, Mike, what’s your excuse?” Bev teased.

“Sorry, you’re not my type,” Mike said, grinning.

“Wow,” she said. “Harsh.”

He laughed.

“It was an accident,” Ben mumbled. “Just the one time.”

“Okay, okay, you can put your hands down,” she said. “I’m just messing with you guys. I’ve thought of several of you naked.”

“Which several?” Richie asked.

“That’s for me to know and for none of you to find out,” she said happily, winking at him.

“Come on, after you put them all through that?” Mike said.

She grinned ever harder, giggling quietly.

“I guess Bev’s the real pervert,” Richie said.

“What? You were all so _cute_ in your tighty-whiteys…”

“God you’re such a bitch.”

She laughed, leaning her shoulder against him playfully as they walked, wringing a smile out of him.

“For the record, I’ve never thought of any of you naked,” Richie said.

“That’s nice, Richie,” Stan said.

“I have,” Mike said.

“You’ve what?” Bev said, trying not to laugh. Since she’d been laughing for the past five minutes, it wasn’t really working.

“Thought about Richie naked,” Mike said.

“What?” Richie squeaked.

“You’re constantly talking about your dick, man!” Mike protested.

“Okay, no, if wondering how big Richie’s dick _actually_ is counts as thinking about him naked, then I’ve done it too, and I don’t want to admit to that,” Stan said. “Not because of the… thing, but just because of who you are as a person.”

“Thanks, Stan,” Richie said, dripping with irony.

“W-We’ve all done that,” Bill said.

“Thanks, _Bill.”_

“If it bothers you, stop making comments about your dick,” Eddie said. “It’s literally impossible not to wonder.”

“Should have just let the clown eat me,” Richie muttered.

Eddie punched him in the arm. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Ow,” Richie said. _“Dick.”_

“Can we please stop saying the word dick?” Bev asked, still laughing despite all her efforts to pretend she wasn’t.

“Yeah, yeah, back to clown business,” Richie said. “I swear to God, that clown calls me a fag one more time I’m gonna bash Its head in.”

“That’s the spirit!” Stan said cheerfully. Then, like a proud father, he added, “And all it took was dick jokes.”

“Bev’s right, just use a different word,” Ben said. “It’s getting stuck in my head.”

“What, dick?” Eddie said.

Bev smacked him, sending Richie into a fit of giggles with her.

**

“Oh, god,” Eddie hissed. “I hate this.”

The cave branched into several smaller chambers. “W-We should see how far each o-one goes,” Bill said. “But don’t go too far to h-hear each other.”

He slid down the rocks to one of the branches. Richie moved to follow, but Eddie grabbed his arm impulsively.

“Ow,” Richie hissed. He gave Eddie a judgmental look, gesturing at his bandages. “Come on!”

“Sorry,” Eddie whispered, letting him slide down while he took a puff of his inhaler.

“Let’s go down the middle,” Stan suggested.

Mike followed Bill to the left, and Ben shone his light down the right branch.

Bev flicked her light at Richie, nodding for him to follow Eddie while she stuck with Ben. He gave her a teasing look, and she flipped him off. He shrugged and ran after Eddie and Stan, leaving her alone with Ben.

“Sorry about before,” she said. “Teasing you guys. I just wanted to cheer Richie up, you know?”

“It’s fine,” Ben said hurriedly. “I was serious, about it being an accident… Like I don’t think about it regularly, it’s just… I mean I…”

“Don’t worry,” Bev said, smiling. “I know how teenage brains work.”

“And you don’t have to say anything, by the way,” Ben said. “About what Eddie said before. It’s okay if you and Bill… Or you and anyone, really. I just want you to be happy.”

She paused, unable to entirely hide her smile. She knew he meant it. He hadn’t planned to tell her, maybe not ever, and that felt oddly safe. “This is a weird question,” she said, “but have you ever written me a postcard?”

The panic on his face was answer enough, but she wanted to hear his answer.

Screaming shattered the moment, and they barely even glanced at each other before they took off running in unison.

Stan, Eddie and Richie skittered across the rocks ahead of them, racing after Bill and Mike.

Neither of them were anywhere to be found, but their branch had a large pool and the water was still rippling.

“Oh, shit, are they…” Richie said, moving to jump after them. Eddie grabbed his shirt and dragged him back.

“Are you crazy? We don’t know they’re down there!”

Bev slid into the water, wading forward and testing the depth. Richie slipped in after her.

They both screamed as the surface of the water exploded, Bill dragging Mike up. Mike flailed, coughing up water, and accidentally dragged Bill back under.

Bev and Richie leaped into the water to grab them, hauling them both up out of the freezing pool and onto the rocks.

“What happened?” Stan cried, helping them out one by one. Ben helped him, while Eddie – Bev noted with some oddly removed amusement – was too distracted pulling Richie up the rocks while Richie fumbled with his bad arm to notice anyone else.

“I thought I saw something,” Mike wheezed, “and I slipped. Bill jumped after me.”

“Jesus,” Bev said, her heart racing. “Oh, god I’m so cold.”

“M-Maybe w-we should g-go h-home and dr-dr-dry off,” Bill said, and Bev couldn’t tell if it was his stutter or shivering.

“Yeah, m-maybe,” she replied. “Fuck.”

Ben reached out his hand to help her up, then quickly shrugged off his jacket to hand it to her. She took it gratefully. “Now you’re going to be cold too,” she said.

He shrugged.

She wanted to ask, _Was it your poem?_ but now was not the time.

“At least it’s not grey water,” Richie said.

“You shouldn’t be getting those bandages wet, Richie, for fuck’s sake,” Eddie said.

“You guys okay?” Stan asked Mike and Bill.

They nodded miserably, leaning against each other as they clambered to their feet.

They started back to the main chamber, Stan bringing up the rear to make sure Mike and Bill were still on their feet, Bev shivering inside Ben’s jacket at the front.

“Oh, shit,” Mike said, stopping short and pointing at the carvings. “You guys see that?”

Bill nodded, staggering, but Bev didn’t see anything.

“Uh,” Richie said. “No?”

Mike collapsed, followed swiftly by Bill. Stan tried to break their fall, but he was too slow.

“Shit,” Eddie said, and all of them ran forward to try to help.

Their eyes flickered under the lids. Richie reached forward to slap Bill’s face gently. “Bill. Hey, Bill?”

“Fuck, what do we do?” Stan hissed.

“Carry them to the car?” Ben suggested.

“Can we carry them?” Eddie asked.

“Guys, come on, wake up,” Richie pleaded.

Bev shook Mike. “Mike?” She leaned over him to shake Bill. “Come on, say something.”

Bill gasped, sitting up suddenly, nearly headbutting Richie in the nose in the process.

“Bill, are you okay?” Stan asked.

Bill blinked at him. “Um,” he managed.

Mike groaned and sat up slower. “Did you see all of that?” he asked.

Bill nodded.

“All of what?” Richie asked. “Guys, what the _fuck?”_

“I th-think we saw how to kill Pennywise,” Bill said.

He and Mike looked utterly serious. Bev looked at the others, who exchanged looks with her and then each other, not sure what to say.

Finally, Eddie managed to speak up, exchanging looks with Richie before letting out a vehement, “Bullshit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: wow there's so many misunderstandings that could build up a lot of angst for one big, explosive moment of catharsis  
me, like, 3 minutes later, crying: i just want my babies to talk about things???????????????????


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> is this... is this a chapter without warnings? i think it's a chapter without warnings.
> 
> other than, like, i am still at the helm, and that's bad for everyone

“Ow, ow, _ow,”_ Richie whined. “Ow!”

“Will you shut up?” Eddie snapped. “I’m trying to focus.”

“It _stings,”_ Richie complained.

“Okay, so wait,” Stan said. “You guys swallowed some dirt water by accident, then saw visions, and that’s… we’re supposed to just accept that you have a way to kill Pennywise?”

“We had the same vision,” Mike said. “At the same time.”

“That could have been Pennywise,” Ben said. “Right? It shows you visions too.”

“But none of you saw it,” Mike argued. “Why would Pennywise show us something that the rest of you couldn’t see that wasn’t even scary?”

“Get in our heads, turn us against each other…” Stan said. “Plenty of reasons.”

“Wait, wait,” Richie said turning so his arm was out of Eddie’s reach and ignoring the resulting glare. “If the Native Americans could kill It, why didn’t they?”

They looked at Bill and Mike expectantly.

“W-Well it didn’t work for th-them,” Bill said.

They all burst out into incomprehensible yelling, which Eddie used to grab Richie’s arm and wrench it back into his lap and return to bandaging while Richie hissed.

“Okay, I know it looks bad,” Mike said. “But they didn’t _believe_ it.”

“Believe it?” Stan yelled. “What, that’s your solution, to just believe we can kill it? This isn’t Peter Pan!”

“But that’s how Pennywise works, right?” Bev interjected. “We managed to hurt it because we weren’t afraid of it, so if we could convince ourselves we can kill it, then… then we can.”

“But we are scared of it!” Stan protested.

“We’re not!” Bev shouted. “It had to reach into other things we could be scared of. People around us, pieces of ourselves we don’t want to accept… all because we’re not scared of It.”

“I mean, Bev, it nearly ate my arm off,” Richie said. “I’m pretty scared of It, independently of the fact that I’m g…” He stopped sharply, staring at them, then quickly forced out, “gay.”

They smiled at him awkwardly. Ben wasn’t sure if he’d appreciate them saying that they were proud of him, and so he fumbled to say something comforting.

Richie, on the other hand, buckled forward and threw up.

“Oh, gross,” Eddie muttered.

“At least I didn’t throw up on you,” Richie managed.

Bev moved over to put her arm around his shoulders, Stan and Bill both fumbled around the room to find some tissues to give him to wipe his face, and Ben and Mike hurried to get a mop and bucket to clean up after him.

“Well, at least it’s out of my system,” Richie said. “Along with whatever I ate last.”

“Yeah,” Bev said. “It sure is.”

Eddie rubbed his back. “Thanks for not throwing up on me, it’s a nice change of pace.”

Richie snorted. “But I think I made a pretty good point of showing that I’m still _really_ scared.”

“But n-not of Pennywise,” Bill said. “I know this is complicated, and I know you’re sc-scared. But this isn’t Pennywise. Pennywise can be killed.”

“But what if It can’t?” Stan asked.

“It can,” Bill said. “And w-we know where It lives.”

“Uh, yeah,” Eddie said. “Neibolt.”

Mike shook his head. “More than just Neibolt. We know where It _lives.”_

Richie sighed. “I said no crackhouses, Bill.”

“It’ll b-be different this time,” Bill said. “Mike and I… we saw It. What It _really_ is.”

“All living things must abide by the shape they inhabit,” Mike murmured.

“What’s that mean?” Stan asked.

“Something we heard,” Mike said.

“It m-means if we can make It take Its real form, w-we can kill It. It becomes flesh and blood, just like us,” Bill said.

“But like… with a lot more teeth,” Richie said.

“Are you coming with or are you just going to let it screw with you some more?” Bev asked.

“Well, when you put it like that…” Richie said, “screw _you.”_

**

“The _one _thing I said…” Richie muttered. “The _one _thing…”

Bev snorted and shook her head.

“Should I tell him how I feel before we possibly die in there?” Eddie muttered to her, tugging her aside.

“How do you feel?” she asked, because she was asking herself much the same question.

“I have no idea,” Eddie said.

“So what would you tell him?”

He threw his hands up. “I don’t know!”

She shook her head. “We’re not going to die. So. That’s that.”

He huffed. “It’s not… _Fine.”_ He looked her up and down. “What about you?”

She glanced at Ben, taking a deep breath. “We’re not going to die,” she said firmly.

“You guys coming?” Richie called.

“Shut up, we’re right behind you!” Eddie snapped.

“You’re bad at this, Eds,” Bev said.

He made a face at her. “Just go.”

“I hate this house,” Stan muttered.

“We all hate this house, Stanley, you’re not special,” Richie said, earning an eyeroll.

“St-Stick together,” Bill said, pushing the door in. “We all h-have to stay t-together.”

Stan nodded, shuffling close to Bill and Mike. Ben trailed after him, and both Eddie and Bev stayed close to Richie. The floor made a loud creak as they walked and they both grabbed the back of his shirt while Stan all but slammed into Mike.

Richie sighed. “Guys,” he whispered. “Stop.”

“Sorry,” Bev said, withdrawing her hand.

Eddie didn’t, staying near Richie as they kept walking.

Bill and Mike crept into the next room, Stan and Ben close behind.

The door slammed shut in Bev’s face before she could do the same.

“Shit,” Bev hissed. “Guys!” She pushed at the door. The voices of the others rang out behind it, muffled.

Richie made a choked sound and she whirled around just in time to see him cough up an alarming amount of water.

“Richie?” Eddie said, voice cracking in panic as Richie fell to his knees, choking as more water spilled from his mouth. “Fuck, fuck, come on, breathe!”

Richie slumped to the ground, and Eddie grabbed his head, trying to keep Richie looking at him.

Bev ran to join them. “Come on, Richie, it’s not real, just breathe!”

“Richie, look at me, _look at me,_ don’t do this,” Eddie said frantically. “Breathe, Richie, breathe!”

Richie writhed, struggling for air as water gurgled in his mouth.

“Shit, shit, what do we do?” Eddie shouted, looking at her. “Bev, he’s dying, what do we—“ Eddie suddenly went very still, staring at something behind Bev.

She frowned, looking over her shoulder. A large mirror stood behind them, painting a picture similar to but fundamentally different from what was really in front of them. The hand Eddie had on Richie’s chest was slightly raised, holding a beating heart in it, blood dripping down his wrists, pouring out from the mirror.

_YOU’RE BREAKING HIS HEART EDDIE, _the blood read. _DO SOMETHING. DO SOMETHING, EDDIE, YOU’RE KILLING HIM._

Eddie stared at the mirror, frozen.

For a moment, it was Pennywise looking back at him.

Bev grabbed the fence post she’d brought with her, and without further hesitation, slammed it into the mirror where Pennywise’s reflection grinned back at Eddie like it was his own.

Richie wheezed, drawing in a real breath and rolling over, and Eddie shook, taking several heavy breaths to shake off his frozen terror. He reached to sit Richie up, hands wavering all over him without daring to touch.

“Are you alright?” Bev asked, running back to help Richie to his feet.

Richie nodded, stumbling to his feet with their help.

Someone shouted from the other room.

Bev hissed a curse and ran after them, Eddie dragging Richie after her.

Bill, Mike and Ben were doing their best to wrench a very large spider off of Stan, all of them yelling at once. Richie nearly tripped over his own feet as he rushed to grab a knife from the floor and stab it into the spider.

The spider flung him into the nearest wall, and Ben stumbled to get to the knife and stab it into the spider a few more times.

The spider threw itself down on him, then rolled away into a corner.

Stan and Ben sat up slowly, wiping what Bev could only guess was spider drool and guts off themselves.

“Oh, yeah, good thing it’s just flesh and blood, Bill!” Richie yelled. “What the fuck!”

“S-Sorry,” Bill said, looking panicked. “You’re r-right, I…”

“No,” Stan said. “No, I’m okay.”

“You’re okay? Stan, you nearly got eaten by a spider!”

“We’re not scared of spiders, remember?” Stan said.

“What are you talking about?” Richie asked.

“What I’m talking about,” Stan said, taking Mike’s offered hand to stand up, “is that It’s reaching. We’re not as scared of It as we were as kids, so It’s just trying to come up with anything at all that’ll work.”

“It knows we can kill it,” Ben said.

“Does it?” Richie asked.

He looked at Bill, who wavered.

“Bill,” Stan said, “I’m okay. We can do this.”

Bill nodded, swallowing. “You’re r-right. It doesn’t know how to scare us.”

Richie looked at the rest of them, then sighed. “Okay, yeah,” he said. “Whatever. Let’s kill this fucking clown.”

Bev glanced at Eddie, who was still in the door, white as a sheet. She squeezed his arm as they started to the well. He nodded, and stayed close to her.

“Stay closer together than before,” Mike said, shining his light down the well as they gathered around it.

Stan let out an uncomfortable whine as he followed after Mike. “Last time we did this it was the worst day of my life,” he muttered.

“You’re the one who convinced us to keep going,” Richie said, following him.

They landed in the sewer with a splash. “Now where?”

Bill pointed with his light, checking with Mike for confirmation. “That way.”

They followed, keeping close enough to grab each other this time. “Gross,” Richie muttered as the water grew deeper and they had to wade through it. He kept his bandaged hand above his head as they went.

“There,” Mike said, pointing at a hatch. “That’s where we need to go.”

They clambered up towards it, but before Bev could do the same, something grabbed her and pulled her under. Hands grabbed at her hair like back on the street, and through the water she could hear a whisper of, “Are you still my little girl, Bevie?”

Several hands closed around her arms, but she knew these hands, the scars along the palms as they pulled her back up, coughing and wheezing.

They all pushed at her to keep her afloat at once, except for Eddie, who was still perched just under the hatch, watching in terror as they dragged her out.

He reached out a hand for her and helped her up, but he still looked shaken.

“Okay,” Mike said, dragging himself up. “Let’s try this again.”

He opened the hatch and pulled it open, looking at them. “Ready?”

They nodded, but Eddie let out a small cough, drawing their atfenceion. “I can’t,” he said.

“What?” Stan asked. “Eddie…”

“No, I’m… I’m sorry,” Eddie said. “But I’m just going to freeze and get you all killed, I can’t… I can’t do this.”

They stared at him, all trying to say something, but it was Richie who reached for him. Eddie tried to shrug him off, fumbling for his inhaler, but Richie clung tight. “Hey,” he said, trying to smack Eddie’s hand away. “Stop that. Eddie, stop.” He tugged Eddie’s hand away, and Eddie struggled against him trying to take a puff until Richie smacked his arm down. “Hey, look at me.”

Eddie did, albeit reluctantly.

“Who killed a demon clown before he turned 14?” Richie asked.

Eddie gave him a baleful look. “Me.”

“Who patched my bleeding ass up even with everything else going on?”

Eddie relented quietly. “Me.”

“Who tried to strangle his worst fear in an alleyway?”

Eddie cocked his head to admit that was a good point. “Me.”

“Who kisses his mom goodbye every day even though she could plausibly roll over and crush him?”

Eddie glowered at him for a moment before spitting, “Me.”

“Yeah,” Richie said, patting his face. “You’re braver than you think, Eddie.”

Eddie nodded breathlessly, and Richie let him go.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Richie muttered, moving to follow Mike as he started down.

“Richie,” Eddie blurted.

Richie blinked at him. “Yeah?”

Bev tried not to look, making it all too easy to watch Stan, who crossed his arms and stared at the floor as aggressively as anyone could.

“Thanks,” Eddie said.

Richie nodded. “No problem.”

_NO!_ Stan mouthed to the ceiling. He waited until Mike and Richie had started down the ladder before smacking Eddie on the back of the head.

_I don’t know!_ Eddie mouthed at him, leading to a silent scuffle until Bev interrupted them with a smack. They both looked at her sheepishly.

Bev sighed and handed him the fence pole. “Here,” she said. “This kills monsters.”

He frowned at her. “Does it?”

She nodded. “If you believe it does,” she said, and started down the hatch.

**

“Shit,” Stan said. “This looks like some kind of nest.”

“Do you think Pennywise is some kind of bird?” Richie asked.

“No, Richie, I do not,” Stan said, sighing.

“Now what do we do?” Eddie said, grabbing Richie’s arm.

Stan gave him an unimpressed look, and Eddie kicked a rock at him.

Bill moved closer to the nest. “We’re n-not scared of you anymore!” he shouted. “Come out and show yourself!”

“Jeez, warn us a little, Bill,” Richie said.

Something lit up in the top of the cavern, drawing their atfenceion.

“Don’t look!” Bev shouted. “It’s the deadlights, don’t look at them!”

Eddie squeezed his eyes shut, hissing as he felt Stan’s hand on his shoulder and Richie pulling closer to where Eddie was gripping his arm with both hands.

“Is this a good thing?” he asked, as an inexplicable wind picked up.

“Just stay close to each other!” Bev shouted.

“Okay, but what the _fuck…”_ It was getting brighter outside his eyelids, flickering, and the wind was getting awfully strong.

Suddenly, it was dark and the wind was gone.

The deadlights still shone down on them, but they were high above and easy not to look at.

Bev looked up from where she’d taken Richie’s hand and grabbed onto Mike’s shirt.

They moved forward all together.

The nest had a single red balloon inside, swaying gently.

“Um,” Richie said. “Okay.”

The balloon expanded and filled the nest, and they started back.

“Not scared?” came Pennywise’s trilling. “You’re not scared anymore? Don’t want to _play_ with the _clown_ anymore?”

The balloon pressed against the spikes of the nest, expanding and expanding until it exploded into red mist, swirling around them as a giant figure rose out of it.

“Oh,” Richie said, because of _course_ he did, “cool.”

Pennywise lunged, and they screamed, scattering as the rocks around them exploded with Its massive blows.

They all skittered in between the rocks. Stan was still on one arm, and he hadn’t let go of Richie, but the others he wasn’t as sure about.

They raced between the rocks to find a relatively sheltered place to hide from the claws snatching at them.

Richie turned around to look where they’d gotten.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” he said.

Eddie followed his gaze. Three doors stood before them, labeled NOT SCARY AT ALL, SCARY, and VERY SCARY.

“Not scary at all,” he said automatically.

“No, no, It’s fucking with us,” Richie said. “Very scary!”

“They’re all going to have something scary!” Stan yelled. “Obviously!” He picked up a rock and opened the SCARY door.

A small bird tweeted at them.

“Aw, a bird,” Richie said, before looking at Stan very seriously. “That thing’s a monster.”

“Really, Richie, you think so?” Stan said dryly.

Richie shrugged, as if to say, _You never know._

Stan poked it with his foot, trying to keep the maximum distance he could.

It roared, bubbling into a large, pterodactyl of a creature.

Stan hit it with the rock, hard enough to startle everyone in the room, including Stan, and then did it another few times.

The door slammed closed, nearly hitting Stan in the face as it went. “All of it is fucking with us,” Stan said.

“That was really cool, Stanley,” Richie said absently.

Eddie looked around. “Guys,” he said, pointing. “It’s gone.”

The hall was empty.

“Fuck,” Richie said. “We gotta get the others!”

“Oh, come on,” Eddie said, but he raced after them as they took off to the main cavern.

Rocks were still spraying across the cavern, and Stan stopped them before they left the safety of the crevice.

“You’ll always be an outsider,” Pennywise was crowing. “Left behind, forgotten…”

Mike had taken shelter as best he could under a shelf of rock, but it wasn’t going to last much longer.

“It’s gonna kill him,” Richie whispered.

Stan moved to speak, but as usual, Richie was already acting faster than he could think. Eddie tried to grab him before he did something stupid, but he was already skidding into the cavern. “Shit!” Eddie hissed, while Stan grabbed him like it would somehow transfer to Richie.

“Hey!” Richie shouted, grabbing a large rock. “You wanna play truth or dare? Here’s a truth! You’re a sloppy bitch!”

Pennywise whirled around, as tall as a building, and Eddie’s insides flipped and twisted into donuts.

“Yipee-ka-yay motherf—“ Richie yelled, before several things happened at once.

Pennywise opened Its mouth, the world lit up, Richie’s yell cut off, and the rock in his hand dropped as he went limp. The deadlights lifted him from the ground, drawing him to the expanding array of teeth in the center.

Eddie’s breath left his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut, like that would help, then opened them again.

He was not going to let Richie die. He wasn’t.

He looked at the fence pole. “If you believe it does,” he mumbled.

“Eddie, no,” Stan said, but Eddie was already running.

“If you believe it does!” he shouted, mostly to himself, because this was fucking _crazy_ and the only way he was going to believe this stupid little metal thing was going to kill that was if he yelled it at himself like a madman.

He threw it, and it flew straight, impaling Pennywise’s mouth.

It choked, spewing lava everywhere, and Richie dropped like a bag of bricks.

Eddie didn’t even have the ability to watch as Pennywise screeched and tumbled back, because all he could think about was Richie. He scrambled to his side, getting a hand around him to smack his cheek. “Hey,” he said. “Hey, Richie, I think I got it.”

Richie blinked at him, bleary as he tried to find his limbs. He made a confused noise, eyes slowly focusing on Eddie.

“Yeah!” Eddie said, relief slamming into him like a truck. “There he is!”

Richie shook his head, trying to clear it, looking like he was trying to pick up where he was or what he was doing from the look on Eddie’s face.

Eddie suddenly found himself with an abundance of things to say and no good way to say them. His fingers curled around Richie’s cheek, drawing him close. “Richie, I--”

He didn’t say any of them, because at that moment, something slammed into him full force, and things went a little hazy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> literally everyone who's read my stuff before: that's what i THOUGHT you'd do you DUMB FUCKING _WRITER_  
(also literally everyone who's read my stuff before: wow ain can't wait to see you reveal that eddie's not dead in the first two sentences of next chapter, who would have expected that...)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really liked the bill and benverly scenes in the movie but they don't translate as well to the written word and also i don't want to change them at all so the end result is just that they happen off screen like i didn't care about them and so this note is just to say that i did love them and i am simply very lazy

Stan rolled to a stop, shaking off the impact of tumbling into the rocky ground.

Pennywise’s claw slammed into the ground, inches from Richie’s face. Richie stared, wide-eyed, at the space where Eddie had been, reactions still a little too sluggish.

Eddie elbowed Stan in the stomach in his efforts to get back on his feet and drag Richie away from the claw as Pennywise wrenched it from the rocks.

“Go, go, _go,”_ he yelled, grabbing Stan’s sleeve and pushing Richie along into the nearest crevice.

The others ran after them. They’d seen better days, it seemed, but Stan was still seeing his life flash before his eyes a little too clearly to ask what had happened. Bill was soaking wet, Ben looked like he’d taken a dirt bath, and Bev was covered in what Stan could only assume was blood.

“Oh my god!” she shouted, stumbling over to them. “Richie! Eddie! Stan! Jesus!”

Stan could sympathize. He wasn’t sure who’d just had the closest brush with death.

“Come back and play, Losers!” Pennywise crowed, snapping at the entrance.

“Okay, so,” he croaked. “So Pennywise is very large.”

“We have to… Are you all okay?” Mike asked, blinking at Stan for a moment before stumbling towards Eddie and Richie to include them as well.

“I think so,” Stan said, watching as Eddie put his hands on his knees and gagged a few times.

“Did you know it was going to miss my head, Stan?” Richie asked, dazed.

Stan had not known that. He’d dived to get Eddie out of the way, and had not had a lot of time with which to do the mental math that getting Eddie out of the way didn’t actually get Richie out of the way as well. Richie, however, didn’t need to know that at the moment, because he seemed like he was still struggling to figure out what the hell was going on. “Sure, Rich,” he said.

“Fuck,” Eddie breathed. “Jesus fuck!” He grabbed Richie by the face and backed him into a wall. “Are you okay? Fuck! You could have died, what the fuck?!”

Richie stared at him with wide-eyes, then looked at Stan. “Stan, what’s happening?”

“Why are you asking me?!” Stan asked.

Richie shrugged helplessly.

“Okay,” Bev said, trying to catch her breath. “We should get out of here.”

Pennywise cackled again, snapping at them.

Eddie didn’t move, dragging Richie down so he could rest his forehead against Eddie’s. He was breathing hard, hands shaking slightly where he gripped Richie’s face. Richie stood very still, like he was scared to breathe in case all this stopped.

“I made him small,” Eddie mumbled.

“What?” Bill asked, wiping water from his face.

“In the alley. The leper. I made him small,” he said. He hadn’t moved. Richie’s hands were pressed against the wall and he was definitely holding his breath. “He seemed so… so _weak.”_

The realization dawned on Mike’s face. “All living things must abide by the shape they inhabit.”

“If we g-go out the entrance, It has to shrink to follow us,” Bill said. “We can make It small.”

“Small enough to kill it,” Bev said sharply.

“Let’s d-do it,” Bill said, nodding at her.

They started towards the entrance, but Eddie still hadn’t moved.

“Eddie,” Ben said. “Come on, we don’t have time.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, standing up straight. His hands stayed on Richie’s face, and he paused again, like he wasn’t sure how to continue without holding Richie’s face in his hands. Richie looked, if anything, even more dazed than he had right after dropping out of the deadlights. “Fuck.”

Eddie tore his hands away like it hurt him to do so, then paused and instead took Richie’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Let’s go.”

Richie gawked at their hands, but stumbled along dutifully as Eddie tugged on his hand.

Bev grabbed onto Ben and followed Mike and Bill up the steps and into the larger chamber.

The entrance was steps away. For a moment, Stan thought they might make it, but it was too soon. Suddenly, there It was, crawling across the entrance, dropping down ahead of them and blocking their path, teeth chomping at the air before them.

“Going somewhere?” Pennywise said, voice dripping with venom.

Stan staggered back, grabbing onto Bill and Mike on impulse.

“What now?” he whispered.

“Th-There’s more than one way to make someone feel small,” Bill realized.

Mike glanced at him, putting it together. “He doesn’t have to be physically small. As long as he feels small…”

“Small?” Pennywise purred. “I am a devourer of worlds!”

Stan blinked. “Not to us you’re not.”

It was kind of funny, really, if there weren’t a giant man-eating clown attached to it.

If there was anything that Stan had learned in the past few days it was that Richie was a goddamn smorgasbord of fear. Clowns were just the tip of the iceberg, Pennywise had grabbed a favorite from the buffet. It had been clever of It, really, but here they were. Eddie was holding Richie’s hand, pressing his knuckles to his heart, and frankly, Richie looked too taken aback by that to even be scared – but it was too late.

Pennywise already had Its hand stuck in the cookie jar.

“You’re just a clown,” Stan said, feeling oddly tickled by the thought.

There was a moment of silence as everyone’s minds rearranged themselves around the statement – everyone including Pennywise.

“You’re a mimic,” Ben blurted. “You’re nothing but a mimic!”

“Clown!” Bev shouted, holding onto Ben and Richie.

“You’re just a clown!” Bill shouted, and the floodgates opened. Pennywise took a step back, and that was all it took to wash away the fear.

“Clown! _Clown!” _they yelled, and with each step the clown took back, the easier it was to advance. The smaller it became, shrinking back into Its cradle.

“Jesus,” Richie whispered. “Look at it.”

“It’s ugly as shit,” Eddie said, seemingly without entirely realizing he’d said it.

“You’re just a damn clown,” Mike whispered. “With a scared beating heart.”

Stan grimaced and leaned forward, slowly pressing his fingers into Its chest. It snarled at him, and he pulled his hand back with an annoyed look. Mike nudged at him gently, and he pushed the last few inches inside. “Gross,” he muttered, curling his fingers and pulling out the heart.

It throbbed in his hand, and they stared at it for a moment before placing one hand each on top of it.

“Look at you,” Pennywise whispered. “All grown up.”

They squeezed, and it squelched into nothing like a wet sponge.

It – Stan hesitated to call It Pennywise anymore – gave a rattling sigh, and crumbled.

This time, they watched it happen, watched it peel away piece by piece until it was gone.

The cavern groaned around them.

“We g-gotta go,” Bill said. “Come on, let’s go!”

Stan shoved them forward, and they raced ahead.

The caves were falling apart around them as they ran, piece by piece. All of Neibolt was collapsing in on itself. As they skidded out into the light, Stan could only think, _thank God._

He nearly collided with Richie’s shoulder as they whirled around to watch the last traces of It fall into the ground, swallowed up like they had never existed at all.

“Fuck,” Stan managed.

“Eddie,” Richie said, blinking at the empty lot before them, “you’re holding my hand.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said.

“Oh,” Richie said. After a long moment of watching the dust settle, he added, “Are you going to let go any time soon?”

“No.”

“Okay,” Richie said, and went quiet.

**

“You all realize we’re not really cleaning ourselves in this water, right?” Eddie said. “Not to mention we’re all cut and bruised and we’re probably going to get—”

“Strepsicolicosi-whatever,” Bev laughed, “we know.”

“Fine, see if I care when you die of some infection…” Eddie muttered.

“I can’t find my glasses,” Richie mumbled.

“What the fuck,” Eddie said. Last he’d looked at Richie, he still had his glasses on – grimy and disgusting as they were, and now they were nowhere to be seen. “How?”

“I don’t know, I’m still fucking out of it,” Richie said, rubbing at his forehead. “Is this all happening? Am I still in the deadlights? I swear Eddie held my hand for like an hour.”

“He did,” Stan said, rolling his eyes. He patted Bill on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s find these glasses.”

He dove under the water, Bill splashing after him as Richie found a relatively stable place to sit his blind ass down and rub at his eyes.

“You’re going to get pink-eye,” Eddie said, for lack of a better thing to say.

“Who the fuck are you?” Richie replied, squinting theatrically.

Eddie rolled his eyes. “Well, at least I know you’re okay.” He glanced over at the others. Stan and Mike were still studiously looking for Richie’s glasses. Ben and Bev were kissing, and Bill was wavering between sad and understanding as he looked at them.

“Gross,” Eddie muttered. There was no way they could kiss in this water without getting it in their mouth. “I’m not doing that.”

“Doing what?” Richie asked, genuinely squinting this time.

“Putting my head in this water,” Eddie said hurriedly. Mike waded back with Richie’s glasses, and Eddie smacked his hand away, waiting until Ben and Bev had finished their moment before allowing him to pass.

Mike gave him a judgmental look, but he didn’t say anything as Richie wiped the mud from his glasses gingerly. Stan threw his hands up, gesturing violently at Eddie. Eddie shook his head frantically. He knew roughly what he wanted to say, even if he didn’t know the words to use, but not here. Everything else between them had happened out in the open without either of them wanting it to. This was one little piece of all this he wanted to keep to themselves.

Richie sniffled, putting on his glasses. They were shattered anyway, and Eddie wondered if Richie could see anything at all in them.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Jesus, did we really do it this time?”

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” Bev said, growing somber. “I’ll… I’ll try to remember to call, this time.” She squeezed Ben’s shoulder, then looked over at Bill. A silent conversation passed between them, and Bill nodded, understanding. She smiled, relieved.

“If you don’t, we’ll just go find you,” Richie said. “We’ll all sew instructions into our underpants reminding us to stick together and never come back here.”

“Richie,” Bill scolded.

“What?” Richie said. “We killed a demonic clown twice now. That’s gotta be enough. It’s someone else’s problem if it comes back again.”

“He has a point,” Bev said.

“Thanks, Molly Ringwald,” Richie replied.

“I see you’re feeling better now that someone held your hand for a bit,” she retorted.

Richie blushed, and despite the fact that Eddie had no fucking clue what the hell was supposed to happen next, that was awfully satisfying.

**

“Christ, I’m so tired of my mom,” Eddie said, suddenly, which was an odd thing to say out of context.

There was something really funny to say there, but Richie’s brain still felt like a record skipping. He wasn’t sure what exactly had knocked it off its axis more, the deadlights, the way he’d watched Pennywise’s claw slice mere inches away from Stan and Eddie through the air that had _been_ Eddie moments before, the way it had thudded into the ground less than an inch from his own head, the way Eddie had held his face for a good several minutes, or the way Eddie had held his hand for a lot more than that, but Richie’s brain was well and truly fizzled out.

“I hate your mom,” he said, then regretted it. He didn’t exactly want to piss Eddie off now, not after handholding had clearly been put on the table. What he wanted was to take Eddie’s hand again, but he didn’t have the nerve.

“Me too,” Stan said. Somehow the three of them had ended up walking home together, as though they were somehow stuck in the same space after having had the same near death experience all at once.

“You know what? Fuck it, me three,” Eddie said.

“Proud of you,” Stan replied, yawning. Richie could sympathize. He wanted to sleep for a week.

“Next year I’m moving out,” Eddie said. “Maybe somewhere like… like New York. You know, somewhere where… where… It’s safer.”

“Like New York?” Stan said. “Though I suppose after Derry…”

“I meant for Richie,” Eddie said. “It’s… People are less… in New York… Right? I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Stan said, and then, more forcefully, _“Oh.”_

Richie felt like it was very obvious what was going on here, but his brain was still dragging along like a can tied to the back of a truck. “Huh?” he said.

“Stan?” Eddie said, though he sounded like he was saying something else.

“Yeah. I think I know a short-cut home,” Stan said. “Try to get some sleep, Richie, you look like shit.”

“Oh,” Richie said, but Stan was already riding away. “Okay?” He looked at Eddie. “What the fuck is happening?”

“Christ, Richie, you’re so fucking dumb,” Eddie said. “Turn left.”

Richie blinked. “This isn’t the way your house is.”

“Yeah, I know where I live,” Eddie snapped. “Come on, just turn left.”

Richie jerked himself around, feeling a little like a puppet on strings, piloted by someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

Eddie sighed and took his hand again, steering him down the streets.

“You’re doing it again,” Richie said.

“Yes, Richie, I noticed,” Eddie replied.

“Wait, did Stan leave because he’s wingmanning you?” Richie asked.

Eddie set down his bike and tugged him off the road. “Come on.”

“Are you taking me into the woods to kill me?” Richie asked, though he was pretty sure he was joking.

“Yes, Richie, after nearly dying to save your life, I’m going to kill you in the woods,” Eddie said, dragging him over to a hollowed out tree and pushing him down into the leaves. From this angle, they couldn’t see the road anymore.

“Then what…?”

Eddie knelt in front of him, grabbing his shirt and pulling him in.

For a brief moment, Richie felt as though he might black out. A weird sort of panic collided head on with a sharp _want_ that Richie had spent a considerable part of his life trying not to feel. Eddie’s lips were soft on his own, his hands curled in Richie’s shirt like he wanted to hold on forever. Richie had no idea what to do with his own hands, so he held them up as though to prove that he had nothing to do with initiating this.

Eddie pulled away. “You kiss like a dead fish,” he informed Richie.

“What the _fuck_ is happening?” Richie squeaked.

Eddie groaned. “I have been listening to your stupid sex jokes for _years _and the second I kiss you, you act like you’ve been raised by Mormons. It’s a kiss, jackass.”

“Wait,” Richie said, the previous conversation finally struggling into his mind like frozen molasses. “You meant we’d go to New York _together?”_

“Yes, Richie, I meant we’d go to New York together,” Eddie said. “As more than friends. Which is why I kissed you.”

Richie stared at him. “Are you sure you don’t need to think about it some more?”

“Do you want to be with me or not?” Eddie snapped.

“Is this a trick question?” Richie managed.

Eddie sighed loudly, grabbing his head. “Richie, I like you. I like your shitty jokes and your dumb face and your weird gangly limbs.”

“None of those were compliments,” Richie mumbled.

“Richie, you nearly fucking died,” Eddie said. “And so did I, and so did most of us, but… but I just… I stood there, holding your stupid face in my hands and thinking about how close I’d come to losing it and the fact that I hadn’t and everything else seemed so unimportant compared to it. And just… just… Fuck, Rich, I looked at you and I didn’t think about how I wasn’t sure what to say or how to feel, I just thought… Fuck, I didn’t say any of the things I wished I had.”

“Like…?”

“Like… The fact that I fucked your mom,” Eddie said, seamlessly.

Richie stared at him. It had been a flawless delivery, really, but he was too flummoxed to respond or laugh.

“And that I didn’t realize the slightest amount of genuine gay affection could shut you the fuck up, and that I think that’s really cute,” Eddie added.

Richie’s tongue still wasn’t cooperating.

“And I want to be more than friends,” Eddie said. _“With you, _before you ask.”

“Oh,” Richie said, and then, _“Oh.”_

“But preferably not in Derry,” Eddie said.

“Oh, God yeah,” Richie said. “Please.”

Eddie smiled at him, and Richie’s stomach collapsed into butterflies.

“Can we… um…” he mumbled.

“Kiss again?” Eddie offered.

Richie nearly choked on his own tongue. “H-Hold hands!” he blurted. “I was going to say hold hands!”

“Wow, you are _such_ a mess,” Eddie said, but he took Richie’s hand and squeezed anyway.

**

“We have literally shared a hammock before!”

“That was _different._ Now it _means things!”_

_“Yeah, it means I’m going to kick your ass if you don’t move over and let me sit next to you!”_

“Ow!”

“Guys!” Ben said. “Quiet!”

Richie and Eddie shot him a small look, and tried to be quieter about the fact that Eddie was currently shoving Richie’s face into the floor in an attempt to lay on him.

_“Hello?”_

Ben’s breath left him. He felt like it had been ages since he’d heard Bev’s voice, even though it had only been a month.

“Hi,” he said, everyone’s eyes boring into him. “It’s Ben?” He didn’t mean for it to come out as a question, but his stomach was in knots and his palms were sweaty.

There was a small pause. _“Ben who?”_

His heart dropped. “Hanscom?”

_“Oh,”_ she said. _“And… are you… Hangin’ Tight there, Ben?”_

Ben grimaced. “That was so mean, Bev.”

_“Well, I guess you can Call It What You Want,”_ she said, giggling.

“She remembers us,” he told the others.

The let out a sigh of relief.

_“How is everyone?”_ she asked.

“They’re good,” Ben said. “Though I think Eddie’s going to dislocate Richie’s arm any moment now.”

“I’m not, he’s fine,” Eddie said. Richie’s face was shoved too far into the rug to add anything, but what Ben could see was about as red as a tomato.

“I think you’re choking him,” Stan offered.

_“What are they arguing about?” _Bev said.

“Eddie’s trying to cuddle, Richie’s avoiding it,” Ben said. “How are you?”

_“I’m good, actually,”_ she said. _“I got your latest postcard.”_

He found himself blushing. “Did you like it?”

_“Loved it. Did you hear back from the architecture program?”_

“Uh, yeah,” Ben said. “I got in. And Stan got into NYU, too, so…”

Stan shook his head frantically.

“Oh,” Ben said awkwardly. “So anyway…”

“Wait,” Richie said, twisting and letting out a loud, “OW! Eddie, you’re breaking my arm!”

Eddie sighed and clambered off of him.

“NYU?” Richie asked.

Stan sighed, setting aside the book he’d been paging through.

“Hang on, something is unfolding,” Ben told Beverly.

_“Goddamn I wish I was there… Tell me _everything.”

“Look,” Stan said, “between the three of us, if Richie’s working instead of school, we can afford a small two bedroom apartment, and you two _will_ die if we let you loose alone.”

“But Richie and I would be living together,” Eddie said.

“Exactly,” Stan said.

They stared at him.

“He has a point,” Richie said.

Eddie narrowed his eyes.

“Stan’s trying to move in with Eddie and Richie, and I think Eddie suspicious that he’s using it as an excuse to avoid affection,” Ben said whispered into the phone.

“Don’t narrate!” Eddie snapped.

“Bev’s on the phone,” Ben countered.

_“Aw, Richie…”_ Bev said, then, _“That’s totally what he’s doing, show him no mercy.”_

“Bev says show Richie no mercy,” Ben said dutifully.

“Okay, fine, you can narrate,” Eddie said, while Richie gasped in deep betrayal.

“I think Richie is severely underestimating how invested I am in him accepting the love he deserves,” Stan said. “I’m definitely going to be on Eddie’s side and you do not get to hide behind me.”

“You’re all _monsters,”_ Richie muttered.

“That’s it,” Eddie said. “Prepare to be smooched.” He threw himself over Richie’s arms, trying to kiss his cheek while Richie flailed and screamed bloody murder.

_“Is that Richie’s reaction to mild physical affection from his boyfriend?”_ Bev asked.

“Yeah,” Ben said.

_“I approve. Let him scream.”_

“You’re _brutal,”_ Ben said.

_“Sounds like the words of man who knows he’s getting mercilessly smooched when I next see him.”_

“I’m hanging up on you,” Ben said, face hot.

_“Okay. Send my love to all of the others. And extra for you.”_

Ben looked down at the floor even though she wasn’t there to avert his eyes from. “I will. Bye.”

_“Bye, New Kid.”_

He hung up the phone. Mike grinned at him teasingly, and Bill was hiding a smile. It was a relief to see – Bev had seemed to think he was okay with it as she was leaving, but Ben had been worried about losing a friend over this. Thankfully, that didn’t seem to be a problem, and Ben was so relieved.

“Stop,” Ben said, certain he was blushing down to his neck. “This is clearly more interesting.”

He pointed at Richie and Eddie as something thudded and Richie yelped. Eddie took this moment to kiss him on the cheek.

“Y-You should definitely sh-share an apartment with them,” Bill said. “They won’t manage on their own so s-soon.”

“Oh, I will,” Stan said, very confident. “I definitely will. They would die.”

“I think Eddie broke my nose,” Richie said miserably.

“Let me look at it,” Eddie said severely.

Richie carefully removed his hands from his nose, which wasn’t so much as bleeding, and let Eddie bend over it. Eddie used this as a chance to kiss it.

“I _trusted_ you!” Richie yelled.

“You shouldn’t,” Stan said.

“Hah,” Eddie said, very proud of himself.

“I think all three of you may die,” Mike said, meeting Bill’s eyes. Bill nodded subtly, and they both laughed.

“Stan, save me, he’s lost it!” Richie said.

“No,” Stan said. “Kiss his cheek again, Eddie, he deserves it.”

Richie shrieked, and Eddie, grinning like a lunatic, did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> does this fic need an epilogue where they're all living their adult lives and meet up? no. will i do it? of course, it's very important to me to reiterate that they DO NOT FORGET EACH OTHER, STEPHEN KING, COME FIGHT ME


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will forever be sad that the losers didn't get to be friends as adult YES I KNOW IT'S A METAPHOR FOR CHILDHOOD TRAUMA STEPHEN KING BUT I'M _SAD_ so anyway this is canon now.

“Okay, just fair warning,” Bev said, as they trudged up the stairs, “you may cry when you see this apartment.”

Ben gave her a worried look. “Why?”

“Because you actually put thought into things like…” She sighed, searching for the words. “What shelves are used for.”

The elevator dinged open, and Bev took his hand, smiling at him in a way that effectively masqueraded as comforting, despite no doubt designed to mess with him. He sighed and let her drag him to the apartment, getting out her spare keys as she did.

She opened the door.

“No!” Eddie shrieked, and Bev quickly pulled Ben inside and slammed the door shut before Richie could skitter outside like a frantic deer. The sudden change in direction he was forced to make as a result gave Eddie the time to tackle him to the side, grabbing onto his waist and pulling him to the ground.

Ben wavered over helping, but Bev held him back, shaking her head, as Eddie grappled Richie into a headlock and dragged him to the precarious blanket fort that enveloped the living room kicking and screaming.

“Hi Bev,” he said breathlessly.

She waved, ignoring Richie’s screeching.

“We have guests!” Richie shouted. “This is indecent behavior!”

“Apartment! Rules!” Eddie yelled, rolling them both under the blankets and out of sight.

Richie screamed like he was being tortured, but Bev seemed to have already moved on, moving to the kitchen, where Stan was sitting on the table and eating a bowl of cereal like this was perfectly normal.

The chairs were all piled underneath the table.

“You guys are early,” Stan said.

Richie was still screaming.

“He’ll stop in a second, don’t worry about it,” Bev said, waving away a half-hearted attempt to point and ask.

Stan counted down quietly from five, and the screaming stopped.

“What’s going on?” Ben asked.

“Richie needs some coercion to accept affection,” Stan said. “Once he has no way out he’s very content.”

“Oh,” Ben said. “Okay.”

“You look good,” Stan said. “Did you lose weight or did you just have another growth spurt?”

“Both,” Ben said. He pointed at the chairs next. “What’s with those?”

“We leave them under there unless we use them so that Richie doesn’t break his glasses tripping over them.” Stan sighed. “Again.”

Ben tried to take in the rest of the apartment item by item. Everything in the kitchen was labeled. Even the salt was labeled, _SAFE FOR EDDIE & STAN, _and Ben was willing to bet that that was the result of several long arguments. The light switch was labeled, _DO NOT TURN ON, will explode._

“What’s this?” Ben asked, pointing at that too.

“Oh, um, Eddie broke the light throwing a pillow at Richie, and now it explodes if we turn it on,” Stan said. It was worrying that even Stan seemed to be fine with this. It made Ben wonder if Eddie and Richie really would have died without Stan around to be moderately reasonable.

“Do you want me to fix that?” Ben asked.

“I mean, yes, if you would,” Stan said. “But we’re used to it, really. That’s why it’s labeled.”

Ben stared at him. “Okay,” he said.

“Ben, look!” Bev said, stretching her arms out to show him the fridge.

She’d been getting into photography and selling the results as postcards recently. It was just a small booth at the local farmer’s market for now, but Ben was certain it would be more. The fridge, naturally, was plastered full of her postcards.

He smiled. “They’re beautiful.”

She grinned proudly.

The doorbell rang, and the lights flickered.

“That can’t be good,” Ben murmured.

“Yeah, they just do that,” Stan said, setting his bowl in the dishwasher and the spoon beside it at a carefully calibrated distance. This, too, felt like it was the result of many fights.

Stan hurried over to open the door, letting Bill and Mike in.

“Hey, Stan,” Bill said, hugging him. He took in the living room, which Ben hadn’t even gotten to yet. “What happened to your apartment?”

“Oh, we live like this,” Stan said. “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as it looks, Eddie bleaches everything every week.”

“Right,” Mike said, absently hugging Stan as he took it all in.

Now that Ben was looking, he certainly knew what Bev meant. It wasn’t just the blankets everywhere, though that was a large part of it. It was also the fact that everything was full of bookshelves, and none of them had any books on them, filled with puzzles, games, trinkets, art and badly organized clothes, while the books were arranged in odd little piles around the floor.

“Why are the books… not…” Ben asked slowly.

“We use them to study all the time,” Stan said. “And they’re easy to shove around when Eddie cleans, so we have a system where…” He trailed off, noticing that it took far too many words to explain their awful choices, then said, “We just live like this.”

“Where’s Richie and Eddie?” Bill asked.

“Your stutter is better,” Ben remarked.

Bill looked at him, then readjusted to look further up. “Hey!” he said. “Ben.”

“You been working out, man?” Mike asked, grinning.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “I started going for jogs with Bev at first.”

“Then he got too fast for me,” Bev said.

“That’s because you’ve been smoking since you were twelve!” Eddie yelled from inside the blankets.

“Fuck you!” Bev said. “But on the bright side, Ben can now lift me like a baby. Come on, throw me over your shoulder.”

“No,” Ben said. For some reason, Bev very much liked being carried around, _especially_ if he carried her like a sack of potatoes, but no matter how much she liked it, it seemed disrespectful.

“Come on!” she insisted. “Lift me. Throw me over your shoulder.”

“Yeah, I wanna s-see,” Bill said, grinning.

Ben sighed and bent his knees, letting Bev giggle and leap into his arms. He made sure to keep her head safe and hold her legs steady as he lifted her over his shoulder. “Yeah,” he said awkwardly, while she whooped, kicking her feet gleefully.

He set her down quickly.

“It’s great!” she said. “Oh, you guys look so good too. And Jesus, Mike, I know I’m the shortest but soon I won’t be able to _see_ you!” She hugged Bill, who looked at her fondly, then Mike, who picked her up off the floor to hug her tight.

He set her back down.

“Oh, yeah,” Stan said. “Over there is my room,” he pointed to the left. “And that’s mostly Eddie’s room, because Richie is still sleeping on the couch.”

“Still? It’s been a year,” Bill said.

“Yes,” Stan said, smiling like someone who was very, very aware of this. “Sometimes I want to kill him.” He gestured at the blanket fort. “So this is our living room and also sort of Richie’s room, because he’s an idiot.”

“Great,” Mike said, lifting the blankets out of the way to let them all clamber inside.

The blankets covered mostly the sofa and the TV, but also a great deal of scattered notes and a box of clothes.

Richie was in Eddie’s lap, arms dangling uselessly from where Eddie had laced his arms together under his armpits in a death grip.

Eddie’s watch beeped. “There, you’re free to go,” Eddie said. “You want to get up?”

Richie shook his head, limp as a ragdoll against Eddie.

“Every time,” Eddie mouthed at them.

“Hey, Richie,” Bill said. “You’re looking good.”

“Thank you,” Richie said, as dignified as anyone could be while flopped over in the clutches of their significantly shorter boyfriend. “What the fuck, Ben, what happened to you?”

“I jog a lot,” Ben said. “It’s good for brainstorming.”

“How’d you make getting hot sound so incredibly boring?” Richie asked.

Ben blushed.

“Hey,” Eddie snapped. “I’m right here.”

“Eddie,” Stan said. “You of all people should know, if he meant anything by it, he would be _physically_ unable to flirt.”

“That’s true,” Eddie said.

_“I’m_ still here,” Richie muttered into the distance.

Eddie kissed his cheek, and he slid further down in Eddie’s grip like he was actually melting. Frankly, Ben could commiserate.

“So are we going out to ea-eat?” Bill asked.

“Yeah,” Eddie said, letting go of Richie. Richie pooled further into his lap, and Eddie sighed, nudging at him.

“Hmmwhat?” Richie managed. “Oh. Yes. I am going.”

He did not move until Eddie shoved him off his lap.

Bill helped him up, clapping him on the back. “You’re seriously still sleeping on the couch?” he murmured.

“Things happen in beds, Bill,” Richie hissed back.

“I wish,” Stan muttered darkly.

**

“So how’s living with these two, Stanley?” Mike asked, trying not to laugh.

“Well they’re fucking terrible,” Stan said, earning an offended gasp from Richie. Stan raised his glass to Richie and took a long sip. “But Eddie cleans and Richie, amazingly, cooks?”

“Okay, the rules for kosher food are much easier than Eddie’s… everything,” Richie said.

“No one cooks cashews into normal meals!” Eddie said. “They just don’t! It’s not even as bad as a peanut allergy!”

“And I’m just saying,” Richie said, “that you literally gave me a list longer than some of Stan’s lecture notes.”

“Bullshit I did!”

“Anyway,” Stan said, as they continued to bicker, “it might be actual Stockholm Syndrome, but I like it. It’s better than living alone. I think. Again, I’ve driven them to the hospital a sum total of twelve times, so…”

Bill snorted. “It’s probably Stockholm Syndrome.”

Stan nodded. “How about you? How’s LA?”

“Warm,” Bill said. “And kind of lonely.”

“I thought you were making friends!” Bev protested.

“I am,” Bill said. “But none I’ve k-killed a killer clown with.”

“Well, maybe I’ll drive out to LA next,” Mike said. “I want to see every state before I settle down somewhere.”

Bill smiled at him. “I’d like that. I have a few manuscripts that could use a second set of eyes. My e-endings suck.”

“I think I can lend some eyes,” Mike said.

“Gay,” Richie called.

“Please shut your mouth for once in your life,” Eddie sighed, rubbing his hands over his face.

“What?” Richie protested. “This is my territory.”

“You don’t have a territory,” Eddie said. “You sleep on our couch. You have… literally _what_ is this bravado, you hid under our bed three weeks ago because I tried to kiss you.”

“That’s irrelevant,” Richie said.

“It is not—!”

“So what have you been up to, Rich?” Ben asked. “Bev mentioned you were trying to get a spot at some comedy club?”

“Oh, yeah,” Richie said. “I’ve been – mildly illegally – tending bar and now they say maybe I could do a show sometime.”

“Richie, I’ve already come to terms with the fact that you pay our rent with slightly illegal money, but…” Stan said.

“I’m legally a dishwasher,” Richie said slowly, “I just bartend for the tips sometimes. I’m not even the youngest one doing it.”

“Just don’t talk about it,” Eddie said. “We don’t want to know.”

“You’re literally underage drinking _at this moment_ because I know people,” Richie said.

“We don’t want to know!” Stan said.

Richie shrugged, eying Eddie. “I get flirted with,” he declared.

“That’s nice,” Eddie said.

“With so many women.”

“You’re not attracted to women, why would I be jealous?”

“You could be a little jealous.”

“Last time I got jealous you cried.”

“That was different, that was a guy!”

“So?”

Stan sighed. “They’re like this all the time,” he said.

“He gets really quiet when Eddie cuddles him,” Bev offered.

“It’s true, it’s very cute,” Eddie said, distracted from the bickering in his eagerness to share this. Richie drained his glass and slid halfway under the table.

“Oh, Bev, how’s the business going?” Bill asked.

Bev rolled her eyes. “It’s not a business, it’s a stand.”

“It’ll be a store any day now,” Ben interjected. “It’s very popular.”

“It’s small!” Bev said. “The market is every other Saturday.”

“It’s going great,” Ben insisted.

Bill pointed at Ben. “I believe h-him.”

She made a face at him.

“Yeah, me too,” Richie said.

“You shut up,” she said. “I have so much dirt on you, you call me like every three days!”

“I have a lot to say!” Richie protested. “Like, did you know that Eddie’s mom once took him to the hospital because he was masturbating?”

“There was more to that story, which I told you in _confidence,”_ Eddie said.

“Why would you?” Stan asked.

Richie grinned at Eddie.

“One hundred punishment kisses,” Eddie said.

Richie went pale. “That’s too many, I’ll have a stroke.”

“You will not! Stan joked about that one time, you can’t hide behind it!”

Stan sighed and looked at Bill and Mike as they continued to argue. “This is my life now.”

“You love them,” Bev said.

“Unfortunately,” Stan sighed.

Ben chuckled, handing Stan a notepad. “Make a list of everything broken in your apartment, Mike and I will swing past the hardware store on the way home and fix it.”

“I don’t think you understand how we live,” Stan said. “But I appreciate the attempt.”

He took the notepad and started scribbling.

“We cracked the coffee table with my face,” Richie said. “I don’t remember this, but I’m told Stan had a fun time explaining it to the nurse.”

“I panicked,” Stan said. “And she didn’t call the police, so we’re fine as long as you stop going to the emergency room every three months.”

“I think she thinks we’re in love with her,” Richie said.

“This is beautiful,” Bev said.

“Did you guys ever fix your window?” Stan asked.

“No, we taped it shut,” Eddie said.

“Cool,” Stan said, and scrawled it down.

“The wrinkled Scotch tape really makes for a beautiful view,” Richie said.

“You fixed a window with Scotch tape?” Ben asked.

“Sssh,” Bev said, patting his arm. “Let it go. They’re still alive, it’s all we can hope for.”

“Thank you Stan,” Richie said.

“Get fucked.”

Richie flipped him off, and Stan waited for him to turn back to Eddie before he mouthed, “Dead serious,” at Mike, shaking his head even as Mike laughed.

**

“I’m going to redesign this, too,” Ben said, taking down the blanket fort as Mike clambered onto a chair to fix the kitchen light, Bill waiting with the parts below him.

“Hey, careful, that’s my room,” Richie griped.

“It is not your room,” Eddie snapped, “we share a room. We’ve been dating for a year and a half, we _live together, _stop sleeping on the goddamn couch!”

“I like the couch,” Richie said. “And when I was still sleeping with your mom, she snored really bad, so…”

Eddie’s watch went off and Richie immediately stopped talking to book it.

Stan skidded ahead of him before he could make it to the bedroom, and he darted around the room in an attempt to get free before Eddie managed to slam him onto the couch, both of them yelling at each other incoherently.

“We! Have! Guests!”

“No!” Eddie shouted. “Every day! This was the deal!”

“I didn’t agree to this!”

“That’s because you’re an idiot!”

“Should we help him?” Ben asked, folding the blankets while he worked.

“No,” Bev said, leaning out the window to smoke. “He’s fine.”

Eddie pinned Richie’s arms. “What’d I say, Stan?”

“A hundred,” Stan said.

“I thought you were kidding!”

“Do I joke about punishment kisses?” Eddie said, putting his entire body on top of Richie’s arms and kissing his cheeks.

“This,” Richie insisted, screwing up his face as Eddie gave him a kiss on the nose, “is cruel,” another kiss on the cheek, “and,” he flailed, but not hard enough to keep Eddie from kissing the other cheek, “unusual…” another kiss, _“unusual…”_

He trailed off, going quiet.

“He never manages to complain past ten,” Bev remarked.

“I can hear… I can… I complain…! Shut up _Beverly,”_ Richie protested feebly.

She flipped him off, grinning.

“So where are we meeting next year?” Stan asked.

“Road trip to LA?” Bill asked. “Mike and I had fun on our w-way here.”

“You saw what they did to our apartment, you want to put them in a car together for several hours a day?” Stan asked.

“They can behave,” Bev said.

“Shut up, if I lose count I have to start from zero,” Eddie said, kissing Richie on the forehead.

“And that’s how strokes happen,” Richie said, dazed.

“It’s not,” Stan said.

“Isn’t it?” Richie said, like he really was having trouble piecing together where he was.

“We’ll split them up between our cars,” Bev offered. “Let them loose on each other when we see an open field, like puppies.”

“Hey,” Richie said, trying to think of a comeback and coming up short. “You… _You’re_ puppy.”

“Uh-huh,” Bev said. “I’d love to see Hollywood. Maybe get a few pictures for postcards, huh? The city of stars.” She prodded Ben with her foot. “Think you can come up with a poem or two for that?”

Ben blushed as he tied a blanket to the top of the window. “Maybe.”

“Let’s do it,” Bev said. “Next year, LA.”

“Yeah,” Stan said, grinning. “Next year. If Eddie doesn’t kill Richie by then.”

“Fat chance,” Richie mumbled. “What’s happening?”

“Fifty to go,” Eddie said.

“Okay,” Richie replied, resigned to his fate.

Mike snorted, then looked at Bill, nodding. “It’s a promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then they continued to have yearly reunions forever because they love and remember each other and i will not hear any alternative

**Author's Note:**

> 90% of this fic is just me going "there's something really interesting about finding out that Richie, the Loser with the fear of clowns, Pennywise's default form, is so scared of his own sexuality that he'd rather die than be outed even when he's 40 years old, and it was 100% accidental and no one is ever going to deal with that thought in a satisfying way so I guess I have to and also no one should ever die and also I really like writing angst so ooops."


End file.
